Multiverse Mix-Up
by NITRO PSYCHO
Summary: now co-authored with Smile- ImTheEndOfAllThatYouSee. Colin and Nathan, two pseudo-friends with their share of bad experiences, are sent on a journey they'll always remember... and would like to forget.
1. Enter the Multiverse

**What up peoplezez**

**Well, this is my first Kung-Fu Panda story and I expect it to be full of awesomeness. Keep in mind that I'm co-authoring it with Serenity in Virginia so it'll probably be a while before chapters start appearing.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Kung-Fu Panda or any likenesses that come from Serenity in Virginia; I do own my characters**

**Enjoy**

Nathan felt like he'd been waiting forever even though he'd only been waiting for Colin to show up for about an hour. He was waiting at the entrance of a fair not too far from his home in Michigan. Colin, who was born and raised in California, was coming over for a while because, according to Colin, he didn't want to spend the next three weeks out in Pittsburgh with his somewhat dysfunctional family. He had apparently checked in to a hotel back at Saginaw yesterday and had given him a call to meet him at the fairgrounds that afternoon. Nathan, whose pulled back brown hair, checkered shirt, jeans, and leather boots were pretty much on par with everyone else, was worried if he was going to pull some sort of trick.

Eventually, the crowd thinned out enough for him to see Colin walking toward him while leading an animal of some sort on a leash. The first thing Nathan noticed about him was that he was a complete opposite of everyone there. Six foot and mid heavy set, his eyes were completely framed by a pair of bug eyed sunglasses that made him look like a giant beetle. His clothes were even more outlandish as they seemed to range from a t-shirt with some of the weirdest designs he'd ever seen to shorts that went from his hips to the middle of his lower legs to worn down black sneakers. The only thing that seemed normal about him was a first place ribbon he had pinned to his shirt.

"Hey Nathan, looked what I won," he said.

"Wow… where'd you get the ribbon?" Nathan asked.

"I got it for winning first prize for breeding the best pig in a competition," Colin said.

"Wait, you breed a pig, dude?" Nathan asked.

"Of course I did," Colin said. "Most genetically perfect pig in the contest".

"Oink." a voice said behind Colin.

Looking down to see the pig, Nathan let out a gasp of shock at what he saw. While the tail and hind legs were still that of a pig, its face and upper torso resembled that of a bodybuilder.

"Oh God-that's the pig you entered Colin?" he gawked.

"Yeah he's something all right." Colin nodded.

"Are those fists?" Nathan asked.

"Sure are," Colin said. "Show him, pig".

Without any prior warning, the pig raised it right hand and punched Nathan in the family jewels, forcing him to drop the funnel cake he had been eating and reach down to massage them. Colin couldn't help but snicker at the predicament his friend was in.

"Colin, how the Hell'd you do this?" Nathan asked once he got back on his feet.

"Wanna know a secret, Nathan?" Colin asked. "I didn't breed this pig. I got it from a farm".

"What kind of farm breeds pigs like these?" Nathan asked.

"You really wanna know?" Colin replied.

"Of course," Nathan said.

"Well prepare yourself Nathan because I doubt you've seen anything like this," Colin said.

_At hotel…_

After a quick cab ride to the hotel Colin was staying at, Nathan was starting to get upset about what his friend was doing. He was now watching him unlock a vault he was carrying with him. Nathan already wasted enough time with this nonsense. Whatever Colin was going to show him, he suspected it was going to be stupid. Eventually, Colin unlocked the vault and pulled out a remote that had several flashing button on the front.

"Voila Nathan." he said proudly.

"Uh… what is this?" Nathan asked.

"This is how I got the pig, dude," Colin said. "Have you ever heard of the Multiverse theory?"

"Uh… yeah I have, but I'm wondering if you have," Nathan said.

"Oh my God… so transparent," Colin muttered. "Well, the theory states that there are an infinite number of universes along with ours that coexist on parallel dimensional planes".

"Dimensional planes… yeah." Nathan nodded.

"Dude, don't repeat the last two words I said like you kinda already knew what I was talking about," Colin said. "You have no idea what I'm talking about".

"Colin, I know what the theory is," Nathan said. "I'm not an idiot, you know".

"Whatever," Colin said. "Now in each of these alternate universes, the reality is different from our own, sometimes only slightly and sometimes quite radically. The point is every possible eventuality exists".

"And that's how you got the pig?" Nathan asked.

"Prepare yourself Nathan and I'll show you," Colin said.

With that, Colin pressed a few buttons on the remote. A series of bright sparks enveloped them before they disappeared in a bright light. A few moments later the flashing subsided and they now seemed to be standing on a street corner. Looking up, Nathan saw that they seemed to be in a heavily technological city that had everything from floating cars to automated sidewalks.

"Where are we?" Nathan asked.

"This is Saginaw, dude," Colin said "Same year, same time. But in this universe, Christianity never existed, which means the dark ages of scientific repression never occurred, and humanity's about a thousand years more advanced, ergo muscular genetically perfect pigs".

"Wait a minute, how do I know this is another reality and not some sort of trick?" Nathan asked.

"That's a good question," Colin said. "What time is it?"

"I don't know… about 3:30," Nathan guessed.

"Watch the sidewalk," Colin said.

Looking up, Nathan saw Tara, a girl he knew that always ripped on because of the way she looks, was on one of the automated sidewalks across the street, yet she a lot more attractive here than in the reality they were from.

"Oh my God… is that Tara?" Nathan asked.

"Thirty- six D, dude," Colin said. "And you know what's amazing? In this universe, she's still one of the ugly ones. Trust me dude, if you saw your mom, your penis would shoot right off your body".

"Hey, let me ask you this," Nathan said. "What happened to all the Renaissance art Christianity inspired?"

"That was my first question to," Colin said. "Let's go have a look at the Sistine Chapel Nathan".

They quickly entered a shuttle service that could apparently travel at light speed. With that it was only a few second ride to where the Vatican would have been. Going inside the nearby cathedral, they saw that the ceiling where the stain glass window would have been now had random pictures of random women.

"Wow," Nathan gawked.

"I know, dude." Colin nodded. "With no Christianity to inspire Michelangelo, they gave the job to John Hinckley. Well are you ready to go back?"

"No," Nathan said. "This is amazing. Can we see more universes?"

"Hmm… well I never really tried, but I don't see how we couldn't." Colin said.

With that, Colin pressed another button and they disappeared.

**Well this is going to be fun**

**For those of you who think this is familiar, I have this to say: yes, I'm ripping off Family Guy; no, there's a point about this**

**R&R, plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	2. Can't get Back

**What up peoplezez**

**Remember when I said there was a point as to why Nathan and Colin were going through all those different versions of Earth. Well the real reason was so that they had a way they ended up in the Kung-Fu Panda world that was funny and made sense**

**Oh and for this part, any alternate versions of them that are talking will be put in italics to make it easier to tell which version is talking and which isn't**

**Enjoy**

ZAP

Once the flashing finally stopped, Nathan and Colin began looking around where they were. It appeared they had turned up outside Nathan's house, yet it was designed in some medieval architecture that you would normally see in Disney movie. Looking around, they saw that all the houses were like this.

"Well this certainly comes off as weird," Nathan said.

"Yeah, I know." Colin nodded. "It's all dark and somewhat creepy".

Looking into the window of Nathan's house, they saw that the Nathan and Colin in this universe were watching TV through some sort of magic mirror. Each wore the same black robes and seemed to have black eyeliner on their faces to make themselves more intimidating.

"_Seriously magic Nathan, why do we have to watch Magic Terms of Endearment?" _the Colin in this universe asked.

"_Because this is a magically good movie, magic Colin", _the universes Nathan said.

"Hey Nathan, wanna get the magic outta here?" Colin asked.

"Magic yeah." Nathan nodded, causing Colin to press the button on the remote.

ZAP

After the sparks had cleared Colin and Nathan were standing in a small crater. Except after a few seconds, Nathan buckled over in pain, grabbing his knees.

"Did I neglect to mention that you should bend the knees when landing in some of these universes?" Colin asked, tapping his chin.

"Yes!" Nathan screamed in agony.

After a few minutes Nathan stood up and stretched his legs. He hit Colin in the back of the head for the snickering he was doing.

"You done?" Colin asked blandly, to which Nathan nodded.

After a pause the two looked around. The area was a vast desert. There were a lot more craters around them as well as the remains of a small town.

"So where are we?" Nathan asked. "What universe is this?"

Colin looked at his machine and began tapping buttons until he got a reading of the world they were currently in.

"According to the Multiverse guide, we're in a universe where that E.T game-," he started.

"You mean that one for Atari?" Nathan asked.

"Yes, in our universe it was received terribly but in this universe, it was received with universal acclaim," Colin said.

He paused when he heard Nathan giggling. He didn't have to ask to know what was so funny.

"Universal, I get it," Colin sighed. "Moving on, due to its success and large numbers, it became an item of high demand, even surpassing oil.

"I have a hard time believing that," Nathan added.

"So do I." Colin nodded. "Anyway, it became a war over who could own the most, leading to…this".

Colin and Nathan looked around at the deserted wasteland. Upon looking behind them they spotted the statue of liberty just appearing out of the sand.

"How does that even begin to make sense?" Nathan asked.

"Let's not find out," Colin added.

"Okay, I think I've seen enough," Nathan said. "Let's get back to our universe".

"I was just thinking the same thing," Colin said while pressing a button on his remote, making the two vanish.

"Bend the knees! Bend the knees!" Colin managed to say.

ZAP

They both landed on the sidewalk in front of Nathan's house, this time with Nathan bending his knees to keep the backlash from hurting him.

"Well lets head inside, dude" Nathan said.

The two of them headed for the front door, neither of them noticing that they looked a little more animated than usual. There was someone sitting on the couch watching TV but they couldn't tell who it was. There was also the sound of a baby crying in another room.

"Nathan can you change Jimmy's diaper?" a voice called from the kitchen. "He's having another oil leak again".

Nathan and Colin looked at each when the term oil leak came up. When the person who was watching TV got up, they gasped when they saw that it was a lime-green robot.

"_Sure thing mom."_ The robot said in Nathan's voice.

Nathan and Colin quickly ducked behind the doorframe and watched as the robot walked into another room.

"Dude, what is this?" Nathan asked.

"According to the Multiverse guide, this is a universe where everyone's depicted as part of that animated robot movie," Colin said.

Sure enough, a blood red robot stepped out of a room on the second floor and stuck his head over the rail. Colin and Nathan guessed that this had to be the Colin in this universe.

"_Dude, can you shut that baby up?_" the robot asked in Colin's voice. _"SHUT THE HELL UP!"_

With that, the robot Colin stormed back to the room he was in and slammed the door shut.

"Colin what the Hell's going on?" Nathan asked. "Why didn't that thing take us back to our universe?"

"I don't know," Colin snapped. "I told you I haven't properly tested it yet".

"Well we can't stay here, that's for sure," Nathan said. "This is just too bizarre".

Colin quickly pressed the button without saying anything.

ZAP

The two landed in complete darkness but not in complete silence. With the amount of noise around them, they could hardly hear themselves think.

"Now where are we?" Nathan screamed in order to compensate for the noises around him. "It sounds like we're in a concert hall!"

"It looks like we're in a universe where all bands use those small plastic instruments from that series of games that let you do that kind of thing." Colin screamed back.

"Rock Band and Guitar Hero?!" Nathan inquired.

"Yeah those!" Colin nodded. "Looks like we got dropped off in a concert!"

They noticed the noise around them get substantially louder. Colin and Nathan turned around and almost laughing at the tiny plastic instruments they were holding. Five frets were on the guitar and bass and there were only four drums and three cymbals.

"Are you ready to rock?" the singer yelled to the crowd, causing a frenzy.

CLICK, CLICK, CLICK

That was all the two heard for over an hour. While it drove them insane, the audience adored it.

"Press the button!" Nathan demanded.

"On it!" Colin screamed, and the two were gone.

ZAP

Once again they ended up in front of Nathan's house, except now everything was richly colored and more detailed than their universe ever was.

"What the hell… now where are we?" Nathan asked.

"I don't know but… suddenly I fell warm and fuzzy," Colin said, an odd smile forming on his face. "Is seems were in a universe where everything's drawn by Disney".

They immediately ran over to the house in a gay fashion. After they got inside, they saw a brown haired woman who was dressed like Snow White removing pies from the oven.

"Oh, Colin, Nathan, there you are." She said as she turned around. "You're just in time for pie".

"Did somebody say pie?" a voice asked behind them.

A black haired man dressed like a prince pretty much floated into the kitchen and grabbed one of the pies. The aroma was causing cute wild animals to come in the house without being shooed out.

"Oh man, this place is magnificent," Colin said.

"Yeah, it's pretty intoxicating." Nathan nodded. "Wanna try one of those pies?"

That was apparently the worst thing to say as the smile on Colin's face was replaced by a look that was absolutely miserable.

"Oh you just had to say that," he moaned as a fairy appeared when pressed the button on the remote and sent them to the next universe.

ZAP

They were now standing in a street in Sanigaw, except this time everyone there was wearing the same boring suit.

"Now where are we?" Nathan asked.

"Oh great," Colin moaned. "We're in a universe where Robert Johnson wasn't born".

"Robert Johnson?" Nathan asked.

"The blues guy that created Rock n' Roll," Colin said.

"I thought Elvis Presley created Rock n' Roll?" Nathan asked.

"That's just something people said to keep the Elvis fans from freaking out too badly about his death," Colin said, pressing the button before this went on any further.

ZAP

The two were now standing in front of a house that was unfamiliar to either of them. A small forest was standing right beside it.

"Where are we now?" Nathan asked, unsure if he wanted to hear the answer.

"I'm not getting a reading but…huh?" Colin started to say but was cut off.

The two looked from a distance at some scene. They were too far away to be spotted.

"Mark my words dragons, you're dead…DEAD!" one person yelled charging at another person with two dragons, one red and one blue, at his side.

Another two people quickly restrained him. However it seemed apparent that they were struggling.

"I'm not sure how much longer we can hold him," one of the people said.

The blue dragon nodded and lead the two that were next to him into the portal, the human turning back and saying something they couldn't hear to the others before entering it.

"I guess it's a universe where dragons exist," Nathan assumed.

"Yeah, and from the look of it I'd say we're in one of your stories." Colin nodded.

"It makes sense… come on let's get out of here," Nathan agreed and the two disappeared.

ZAP

They were now standing in one of the dreamscapes in the Beatles Rock Band game. In the distance, they could see the band playing one of their songs.

"Love it," Nathan said.

"Hate it," Colin said, pressing the button.

ZAP

They were now standing in an open field with arcade videogames and TVs with game consoles hooked up to them stretching out for miles.

"Love it," Colin said.

"Hate it," Nathan said, pressing the button.

ZAP

When they entered this world, they noticed that it seemed completely empty.

"What the- now we're nowhere," Nathan gasped.

"Not exactly, Nathan," Colin said. "This is a universe, but its only inhabitant is one really far away guy that yells insult".

Sure enough, the guy that apparently yelled insult was barely within distance when they turned around.

"You suck!" he yelled.

"Screw you to dude!" Colin yelled back. "Well, that was fun".

ZAP

Once again, they both landed on the sidewalk in front of Nathan's house.

"All right, we're back home dude," Nathan said.

"No… this is the universe of misleading portraiture," Colin said.

Sure enough, a pair of movers picked up at painting that the house on it revealing the insult guy they had last seen.

"Well, it's not so bad," Colin said. "The insult guy's here. You suck gaywad!"

Unfortunately, this turned out to be another portrait as two new movers picked it up and carried it away.

"Aww, they got both of us," Colin whined as he pressed the button.

ZAP

The next universe they were in was the strangest they were in as it appeared that humans were now subservient to anthromorphic talking dogs.

"We're finished," Nathan said. "We're never going to see anyone from our universe again. We're just going to be stuck bouncing around between the universes for the rest of our lives".

"Oh stop whining," Colin said. "Just because we're in some random universe doesn't mean someone's gonna jump us. Besides I think I figured out what's wrong with the device. I just have to fix a few circuits and we should be good to go".

Nathan didn't give him the chance. He grabbed the device before Colin could open the panel leading to the insides of the device.

"Hey, what the hell are you doing?" Colin asked.

"I'm not taking any chances," Nathan said. "I'm getting rid of this thing before we get in serious trouble".

"Give it back, Nathan!" Colin yelled.

This lead to a bit of a tussle over the device. However, once Colin was able to press the button, it slipped out of their grasps and shatter on the sidewalk.

"Oh now look what you've done!" Colin snapped.

At that moment, sparks began sputtering out of the now broken Multiverse device. Before either of them knew what was going on, they were sucked up in one last jump to some random world.

**Well, this certainly took a turn for the not so wonderful. Stay tuned to find out what happens next.**

**R&R plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	3. A Complete Facelift

**What up peoplezez**

**New chapter, Same craziness**

**Enjoy**

Nathan slowly opened his eyes to a clear blue sky. He began rubbing his face with his hand.

"Why did I have to get involved in this?" he muttered to himself before realizing he was touching something furry.

He looked at his hand only to find a bulky, beige paw. There were also small claws sticking out where his nails would be.

"Ugh, what the-"Nathan grunted as he got up and looked down at the rest of his body.

He had grown an incredible amount. His body was covered in beige fur with darker spots scattered around his body. He looked behind him and spotted a bulky tail swaying occasionally. His only clothing was a pair of purple pants.

"Purple pants? That just looks silly," Nathan said while looking around, noticing that Colin wasn't with him.

Upon further inspection of his location he noticed he was in the center of a spacious yet enclosed area; towering over him was large tower. He was standing by a large crater with a cracked hammer in the center. Then his small ears picked up howling. In a matter of seconds he was completely surrounded by wolves.

"Who are you? How did you get here?" The largest one of the group asked him.

He was wearing generally light, spiked armor colored black with gray fur. A shoulder plate was on his right arm that had a red sun design. His single eye was yellow with a red pupil; his other eye had been scratched out.

"Look I don't want any trouble I-"

"Well you found it punk," He said, pulling out a hammer.

"Stop!"

The entire crowd of wolves turned around to a quiet voice. The source of the voice was a pure white peacock with all white robes; his only coloring was on his large tail feathers, which had circles of red.

"Ah my old friend, won't you please come with me?" he said gesturing Nathan to come to his side.

Nathan had never met an albino peacock but he figured he'd be better off with a friendly stranger than murderous ones. He rushed to his side and the two walked away. When the two made it inside the tower Nathan broke his silence.

"Okay, who are you?" he looked down for an answer from the peacock, who responded with a grin then a chuckle before breaking out into a true laugh. He brought his head close to Nathan's ear and whispered to make sure no one else would hear him.

"It's me Colin," the peacock hissed.

"What- that can't be right," Nathan said. "Colin does not look like this".

"That's what I said." the peacock nodded.

"Well, isn't there some way that I can tell if you're Colin?" Nathan asked.

"Sure is." The peacock said, smiling in a way that wasn't that reassuring.

Before Nathan could say anything else, the peacock kicked him in the family jewels with one of his metal lined talons. Nathan dropped to his knees and began groaning from the immense pain. It took him a few minutes to ease the pain.

"That's for getting me stuck like this," Colin hissed.

"Okay I get it," Nathan groaned. "You're not too happy with your remote breaking".

"Well, what did you think was going to happen?" Colin asked. "You know I don't like it when people just grab my stuff. And yet there you go, grabbing the remote and if you owned the thing".

"Colin I think we have bigger problems right now than what happened in that other universe," Nathan said. "I don't even know where we are".

"I don't know either," Colin said. "But if I had to make a guess, I'd say we're in the Kung-Fu Panda universe".

"That doesn't explain how we ended up like this," Nathan said.

"Oh, shut up," Colin said. "It's obvious the Multiverse guide breaking when it was charging up got us like this… Tai Lung".

"Oh, you think this is so funny," Nathan said. "It's not like I'm stuck in some undercooked turkey with some ego problems".

"Yeah well we'd better get to a higher room," Colin said. "Somehow I don't think those wolves will take too kindly if they found out their boss wasn't really their boss".

And so began the long and tedious walk up ten stories worth of stairs to the top of the tower. Gasping and clawing their way up, they finally reached the throne room where the golden throne was sitting. Colin barely had the strength to pull himself over to the throne and sit down.

"Ok, whoever decided to make this place this big is now an idiot," Colin groaned.

"Yeah." Nathan nodded. "Hey Colin, how'd you get those wolves to do what you wanted so easily?"

"What, those guys?" Colin laughed. "They're easy. As long as I keep pretending to be that Shen guy, they'll never suspect a thing".

"And the Soothsayer?" Nathan inquired.

"I haven't seen her yet." Colin shrugged. "Of course I doubt she'd be willing to come back here after what happened anytime soon".

"And those Kung-Fu guys?" Nathan asked. "I'm pretty sure they'll chop you in half if they see anything that represents Shen in this place".

This got a grimace on Colin's face. He got up and began pacing around the room trying to figure out a way he could sweet talk his way out of not getting his butt handed to him for something that wasn't really his fault.

"Ah… I'll cross that bridge when I get to it." he shrugged.

"That might be the best thing you can do right now." Nathan nodded.

"What does that mean?" Colin asked.

"Think about it," Nathan said. "We've in a world that is pretty much ancient China, which means no fast food, no Rock, and no technology".

Colin's eyes blanched when those last two words came out. Unlike Nathan, Colin's life had been molded with technology being the focal point of his happiness. He ended up fainting.

**Well, this was fun**

**R&R plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	4. When in Doubt, Run

**What up peoplezez**

**New chapter, Same craziness**

**Enjoy**

"Is it some big event?" Nathan asked.

"Yeah." Colin nodded.

"Is it Wrestlemania?" Nathan asked.

"Yeah," Colin gawked. "How did you know"?

"Because with you, it's either videogames, heavy metal, or WWE," Nathan explained.

Colin and Nathan were now officially miserable while going through a game of 20 questions. However, it was becoming more and more obvious that they knew too much about each other to make it work properly.

"Okay go," Nathan said crossing his arms, thinking he found a good thing.

"Beatles," Colin said without thinking.

"But- what- how did you figure it out?" Nathan gawked.

"Dude, the first time I may not have gotten it, but the sixth time?" Colin said in disgust.

"Colin, we've got to stop moping around and find a way back to our own world," Nathan said.

"How can we?" Colin snapped. "The only Multiverse remote I even had was destroyed thanks to you".

Nathan was about to argue but couldn't really blame him for being testy. A full month had gone by since they found out they were stuck in the Kung-Fu Panda world as the bad guys from both the films. Colin had come to grips with the fact that there was no modern conveniences, yet that didn't stop him from complaining about the situation. Meanwhile, the confusion Nathan had dealt with had died out and replaced with the same amount of unhappiness that Colin was feeling. However, just as he was about to say something to cheer me up, the wolf boss entered the throne room with somewhat of a worried look on his face.

"What is it?" Colin, who quickly noticed him, asked.

"We have a bit of a situation, sir," the wolf said. "The scouts have informed me the Furious Five have arrived in the harbor and are currently making their way here".

Both Colin and Nathan blanched when they heard this. While they were aware that the Five had been keeping a tab on Gongmen city since the incident with the original Lord Shen, they honestly weren't expecting them to call so quickly.

"Uh, sir… what do you want us to do?" the wolf boss asked.

"Uh… stall them," Colin hurriedly said. "Keep them occupied until we figure out what to do".

"Right away, sir." the wolf boss said, before running on all fours down the stairs.

"Colin, why is it that we have to keep them from seeing us?" Nathan asked. "Wouldn't it be better if we just talked it out rationally?"

"Are you insane?" Colin snapped. "We look like the bad guys. If they see us, it will be kick butt first and ask questions never. It would be a whole lot safer to just get out of here before we get attacked for something that wasn't our fault".

The conversation was interrupted by rather loud shouting from the courtyard. Peeping out through a window, Colin saw several wolves trying to reason with a group of animals he assumed were the Five. Colin could tell that the one who was shouting was Tigress, which made sense because she was the only one who really had a temper. After a while, they brushed past the wolves and made their way inside the tower.

"They're coming," Colin moaned.

"What do we do?" Nathan asked.

"Run!" Colin yelled.

The two of them quickly made their way to the stairs and started their way down. However, after about one story they saw a road block up ahead in the form of the Five, who were making their way up at a faster pace than they were going down.

"Any more bright ideas?" Nathan sarcastically asked.

Looking around, Colin saw the ropes that hung down to the bottom floor. Without missing a beat, he jumped over the railing and grabbed one of the ropes, knocking away lantern as he slid down to the floor, gripping the rope tightly at the end so that he wouldn't slam into the ground. Looking up, he saw that Nathan hadn't taken the hint.

"Hey, what do you expect me to do?" Nathan yelled.

"Just jump!" Colin shouted.

Just before the Five got to where he was standing, Nathan jumped over the rail, holding on for dear life to the rope he had grabbed a hold of.

"How do I stop?" he shouted.

"Don't worry!" Colin shouted back. "Cats always land on their-"

Before Colin could finish what he was saying, the rope Nathan was holding on to ran out of rope well before he reached the ground. He fell the remaining story and slammed face first into the ground, leaving a decent sized crater in the flooring.

"Face?" the somewhat put off Colin asked. "Man what kind of cat are you?"

"The one that's only been one for a month peacock!" Nathan yelled.

Unfortunately they didn't have time to do anything else as the Furious Five followed them down with the ropes. They seemed surprised to see the two of them standing there.

"Impossible," Crane gawked.

"I know right," Colin laughed. "There wasn't even a storm".

However, that didn't dissuade the Five from making them back into the courtyard. It seemed that Colin's prediction that they would immediately attack them was about to be really accurate.

"Look, we don't want any trouble," Nathan defensively said.

"Well you found it," Tigress growled. "I don't know how the both of you managed to survive, but I can assure you that you won't be lucky twice".

Luckily, the guys received a timely distraction in the form of what appeared to be the Wolf Boss' entire pack, who quickly surrounded the Furious Five and began attacking them. It was unclear if they could hold them off forever, but their interference allowed Colin and Nathan to slip through the gate and begin making their way through the streets of the city.

"Now what do we do?" Nathan asked once there was a comfortable distance between them and the palace.

"Well, if I'm right, those losers had to have come here by boat," Colin said. "I'd say it would be smart to head over to the docks".

At that moment, the sound of roof shingles shifting under weight caught their attention. Looking up, they saw that the Furious Five had managed to escape the wave of wolves and were making their way along the rooftops toward them. They were certainly moving a lot faster than the two of them as they had to move in and out of crowds just to get where they were going. They were dead meat if they couldn't go faster.

Suddenly, their legs were taken out from under them as a cart plowed into them and sped off in the direction they were headed. Looking up, Colin saw the wolf boss smiling down at them.

"So, how's your day going," he asked.

"We've had better," Colin said.

With that, the wolf boss maneuvered the cart so that it could get them through the crowds a lot faster than they would without it. Surprisingly, the Furious Five were barely able to keep up. This had to force the trio to take specific shortcuts just to try and outmaneuver them.

After a while, Tigress got tired of the chase and had Mantis use that same technique she used to help Po stop the wolf boss in the past again, this time to outright stop him. The wolf boss, expecting the attack to come again, maneuvered the cart so that Tigress' attack would launch them forward instead of destroying the cart. However, what he didn't notice was the ramp that was right in their path, and by the time they did, there was no way they could move in time.

"Hang on!" the wolf boss yelled.

"To what?" both Nathan and Colin screamed.

The cart launched off the ramp in the direction of the harbor. Unfortunately they were unable to clear all the houses that were in the way. The cart collided with the top of a roof and catapulted the three to them into the bay. After a few moments, they surfaced, gasping for air.

"Well, that was fun," Colin sarcastically laughed.

"And you blamed me for whining too much," Nathan laughed.

"Come on," the wolf boss said. "That has to be their boat over there".

The three swam over to the only boat there, got on board, and began making their way upstream.

**Well, this certainly came out pretty good**

**R&R plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	5. the Cult of Myrkor

**What up peoplezez**

**New Chapter, Same craziness**

**Enjoy**

"Okay guess".

"No, we are not playing that again Nathan. It was boring enough back at the palace," Colin called out to Nathan on the small boat.

The three, counting Wolf Boss, had been riding the dingy boat for a few days, hoping to reach the ocean so they could escape the five easier. It had been a rather tense trip because the duo had to tell Wolf Boss the whole situation because he felt he was at least owed an explanation for what had been going on. Now they were just hoping that they could get away from the Five.

"Okay then what do you suppose we do now?" Nathan asked

"Shut up and wait for that wolf to get us out of here," Colin huffed before turning to the wolf boss, who was on the upper level, navigating the boat. "How much longer until we are in the clear?"

"We should be about a day longer," he called down to Colin and Nathan. "But we're going to have to make a stop soon. I'm getting hungry again and all I've had to eat were those rotten berries we found yesterday".

That did anything but lift the sullen mood on the boat. Now they had to wait for Wolf Boss to find some sort of food that didn't taste like the inside of your mouth.

"I just hope we can find a way home soon," Nathan complained. "Being a giant snow leopard isn't exactly the most pleasant way to kill your time".

"You think you have it bad?" Colin snapped. "I'm a freaking albino peacock, and I shouldn't even be out in the stupid sun…?"

Colin gestured to the sky to suddenly notice the lack of the ball of light in the sky. Instead was a giant black cloud with lightning rolling across the surface. Colin gulped as the wind picked up, causing the boat to sway violently. It sent the two to their knees; it was a tempest outside.

"Hang on you two this could get hectic," the Wolf Boss called out only to be silenced by the sudden heavy rain. The two ran into the sheltered section of the boat and held on to something. When large columns of water began entering the boat though the doorway, they knew they were in serious trouble.

"Oh boy-" they heard Wolf Boss call out before the boat suddenly split in half from a large crashing wave. All of them were immediately brought deep underwater, passing out minutes later.

* * *

><p>"Oh… ow…huh?" Nathan looked around and saw that he was alive, and on land, which made him jump on the inside.<p>

He got a better look at his surroundings and noticed that he was in a rundown house, a weak fire glowing in the center. He looked over a little more and spotted a hooded figure over a shattered crate; he could hear a mortar and pestle being used. The figure was thin and in a tattered brown robe. As silent as Nathan remained in slight movements, the figure heard him.

"You mussst relax massster," he heard a voice slither though his ears.

Nathan could tell from the excessive s's that it was some sort of reptile under the hood. His theory was proven more so, as he saw the hooded reptile slither over to him, it was a green snake under the hood; narrow yellow eyes fixated on Nathan.

"Drink thisss," he gave Nathan a cup of a solid green liquid, a disgusting aroma entered Nathan's nose but he reluctantly drank it. His eyes widened as the first sip passed down his throat, it tasted like heated puke but it woke him up quickly, his sore limbs immediately numb of pain.

"Thank you," Nathan said with strain in his voice, he got up into a sitting position "What's going on?"

"We sssaved you massster, and other massster too," he spoke slowly.

"Master? Me and Col…Shen?" Nathan asked, earning an excited nod from the snake."Where is he?"

"Over here dip wad." Nathan heard Colin's voice to his right.

Colin was standing with his back to one of the walls. There were several cuts on his face and his left eye was swollen shut, but he didn't seem to be in any real danger.

"He woke me up a couple minutes earlier and explained everything," he said before turning to the snake and asking him to leave, to which the snake bowed and left in a hurry.

"So what's up?" Nathan asked.

"Turns out he's part of a cult called Myrkor," Colin said. "Luckily for us, they managed to pull us out of the water before anything else happened".

"What happened to Wolf Boss?" Nathan asked.

"I don't know," Colin said. "They couldn't find him anywhere in the river".

Nathan let out a startled gasp.

"Hah, if you think that's bad here's the _really _scary part: they worship 'us'," Colin said, using air quotes to signify Tai Lung and Shen. "We're at the abandoned panda village back in China, you know the one 'I' destroyed," Nathan swore when he heard that last part.

"Relax, they're aware of the Furious Five's intentions and are going to great lengths to make sure we are protected and happy," Colin laughed "They've even found the broken Multiverse remote".

Nathan's face lightened up. "Oh this is wonderful news, now we can go home…" he slapped Colin upside his feathered head, causing a squawk to escape his throat "…with a broken remote. Colin, even with the thing here we still can't leave."

"If you'd let me finish," Colin said, another kick to Nathan's jewels silencing him effectively, "you'll know that they seem to have acquired some primitive forms of tech. I might be able to use it to fix the remote so we can get home".

"I think one popped!" Nathan cried in between moans.

"Oh get over yourself," Colin laughed as he helped his friend up. "All we have to do is play along with their charade long enough so I can fix the remote".

Nathan and Colin began walking out of the abandoned home. Despite the fact that they already knew what it was going to be like, they still couldn't help but shiver at how wrecked the place was.

"Well how hard can that be?" Nathan asked before the two were greeted and showered with attention by the rest of the cult. Colin looked at Nathan in annoyance then slapped him upside the head.

"That's for jinxing it," he muttered.

They then had to spend the next hour dealing with questions they kept asking. The most annoying was about how they had survived their respective battles with Po. Nathan's tale described how the Wuxi Finger hold hadn't killed him as everyone had suspected but instead sent him to some sort of limbo where he had to scratch, claw, bite, kick, and punch until he found a tear that allowed him to get back to the real world, albeit far away from the Valley. Colin decided to stick to the straight and narrow and said that he had merely jumped off the boat at the last plausible second and that he had been hiding out it the now abandoned foundry the whole time.

After finally managing to fight their way out of the crowd, they managed to make their way back to the house and barely managed to find cots to sleep on. Getting to sleep was the hard part and the cots were rather uncomfortable and it felt like they were being watched. They ended up falling into a fitful sleep.

**Well, another chapter in the books. I hope you guys brought your hard hats 'cuz from here on out, it gets really bumpy**

**R&R plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	6. Suspicious Ceremonies

**What up peoplezez**

**As I'm going back to college this Wednesday, I'm not sure how much time I'm gonna have on working on my stories, so just bear with me for a while.**

**Enjoy**

If, a month ago, someone had to Colin that a broken remote would send him and a friend into a random universe, he would have disregarded what they had said out of ego. If someone told him he and said friend would be stuck as known bad guys of said universe, he would've cut off all contact with them for fear of insanity. If someone told him that circumstance would force him to put his life in the hands of a cult, he would've throttled the guy right then and there.

So, when Nathan accidentally destroyed the Multiverse remote and sent them to the Kung-Fu Panda world, Colin was surprised. Angry, yes, but mostly surprised.

When he found out that they had (more or less) turned into Tai-Lung and Lord Shen, Colin was alarmed.

When they were forced out of a perfectly good tower because the heroes wouldn't hear a word against it, Colin was stunned.

And then, just when it looked like they were about to get back to a vague sense of normalcy, a tempest had forced them into the care of the Myrkor cult.

At that point, Colin was utterly stupefied. Of course, he tried his best to be happy about the situation, but more than often the strangeness of the situation would catch up to him and make him stop and think about the whole situation. Meanwhile, the replacement parts for the remote were so odd that he was having a hard time figuring out how to repair the thing.

And then there was the cult itself.

While Colin wouldn't call them creepy, due to his penchant of trying to subdivide everything that happened into a category, he wouldn't exactly call them cool. Every time he tried to work on the remote, the snake that had saved him was always dragging him into stupid little things. On top of that, the cult seemed to be everywhere. No matter when he went, it always felt like he was being watched by at least three people.

But the worst thing about the whole thing, in Colin's mind, was the sense that no one in the cult was being completely honest with him. Every time he got into a conversation with one of them, he would always come out of it feeling they were keeping some sort of secret from him. Of course, Nathan didn't seem the slightest bit interested in instincts because he thought they were all right, despite Colin's constant complaints that they were bothering him too much.

It was after one of these complaints that Colin had decided that he had had enough of the constant unwarranted praise and attention. Getting back to the house, he immediately packed the slightly repaired remote and several components he needed to finish repairing the remote.

"Ok, explain to me again why we have to leave with the Five still skulking around out there," Nathan said.

"Because I don't trust that stupid cult," Colin said. "They're keeping secrets dude, and I for one am not going to stick around and find out".

"Colin, will you stop harping on them," Nathan snapped. "All you've done this past week was antagonizing them with no proof to back it up".

"They're a cult," Colin countered. "Every time a cult takes someone in, there is usually some sort of ulterior motive behind it".

"I don't care," Nathan said. "You're letting your stupid ego cloud your good senses. All they've done this past week was make sure that the Five haven't killed us, and yet you still-".

Colin held up a wing silencing Nathan before he could finish his rant. He then motioned him to the doorway, where urgent whispering seemed to be taking place.

"… quite sssure that the wolf hasss been taken care of?" the voice of the snake asked.

"Affirmative," a gruffer voice said. "Killed him myself".

"Good… very good," the snake said. "Now thossse two sssimpeltonssss won't sssussspect a thing. Once the ceremony isss completed, our true masssterssss will cleanssse China and we ssshall have our revenge for all the wrongsss that have been committed on usss".

"We'd better prepare quickly," the other character said. "That Colin fellow is growing suspicious. It won't be long before he discovers what we are truly up to".

"That isss of no concern," the snake said. "Sssoon our massstersss will be back and he will have been none the wissser".

With that, the snake and what appeared to be a gecko walked away from the house. Once they were sure they were a good distance away, Colin and Nathan turned to each other.

"See," Colin hissed. "I told you there was something rotten with then".

"I don't believe it," Nathan gasped. "They killed Wolf Boss. And he was our only ticket to staying alive. What do we do now?"

"Well we can't stay here, that's for sure," Colin said. "Whatever this ceremony is, they need us in order for it to work. First chance we get, we have to make a run for it".

* * *

><p>It was late at night and the wind was still; there wasn't a sound through the camp. After making sure they had enough supplies to last until they got to the next village, as well as the remaining parts to fix the remote, Colin and Nathan left the house and began quietly making their way out of the village. The tricky part was getting out of there quickly without making any sort of-<p>

SNAP

"Nate!" Colin hissed to Nathan, who had accidentally stepped on a twig.

Nathan quickly lifted his foot up; the two looked around to make sure no one heard them. When they saw no one, they sighed and kept walking.

FWOOSH

A sudden flame made the two jump. They looked at the source of the flame and realized it was the snake holding a torch, a wicked grin on his face.

"Ssso glad you could join usss massstersss," he said to the two of them sarcastically.

"What do you want?" Nathan asked.

"Oh, not much," the snake said. "Jussst for the both of you to help usss with a little… event we've ssset up today".

The two felt a sudden force pushing them on their backs sending them through the crowd. The two were then forced to sit in lavish thrones and tied down at the wrists so they couldn't escape. Unable to move, they could only watch as the cult began whispering.

"Ta uverdig sjeler. Gi oss den sterke".

At first nothing happened but then the wind picked up a tremendous amount, the skies grew black. Colin and Nathan could barely keep their eyes open from all the strain the wind was causing.

"So this is it?" Colin asked, looking at Nathan. "Done in while stuck in a different dimension by freaks who wish to throw the world into destruction."

"That's the short way to say it I guess," Nathan looked at Colin. "Colin before we go, I wanna let you know something".

"What?" Colin asked watching the spirits of Shen and Tai Lung emerge from the black skies and descend toward them.

Nathan sighed before saying, "My name's not Nathan".

"Wait…what?" Colin gawked.

Suddenly, the ceremony was interrupted by the cult suddenly screaming and being sent flying. The distraction caused the spirits of Shen and Tai Lung to disappear and the sky to return to normal.

"It's the Furious Five!" Colin announced.

As the two got free from the restraints, they watched as the Five, including Po, an ox and a crocodile broke their way through the crowd and get up to them, clearly angry about the fiasco at Gongmen City, and were ready to strike at any moment.

"Great, now they're going to kill us," Colin whispered.

"Don't worry", Nathan winked. "You saved us from Myrkor; I'll save us from this".

Colin curiously watched Nathan stand up, and then he put his hands up.

"We surrender!" Nathan yelled.

Colin sighed as he placed his head in his wing, then stood up and surrendered as well. Taken aback by their willingness to give up, the Five silently and awkwardly put handcuffs on the two.

"We're taking you two back to Gongmen City for questioning," Tigress growled forcing the two to walk.

Nathan whispered to Colin, "You still got the remote?" Nathan turned back around when he saw him nod. "How much longer 'till it's done?"

"Most of the components are already fixed," Colin whispered. "Once it's completely repaired, it just needs a lot of power, but I'm not sure how we can get it now".

"Don't worry, we'll explain what's going on and they'll-" he was interrupted by a slap to the back of the head.

"Quit talking." the ox said gruffly. Colin snickered at him getting hit only to be tripped by Nathan stepping on his tail feathers.

"Oops," Nathan fake apologized.

The two proceeded to hurt each other all the way back to Gongmen City.

**Well, things certainly took a turn for the not so wonderful.**

**R&R plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	7. Evening out the Situation

**What up, peoplezez**

**New chapter, Same craziness**

**Enjoy**

If anyone said that Colin was in a bad mood when he was sent to his cell back in Gongmen City, then that would be the freaking understatement of the century. Not only was he still sore from the game of one-upmanship he had with Nathan, but he had to go through several shouting matches with Tigress during his interrogations, most of which ending with Colin getting knocked out by a single punch. Nathan, meanwhile, always wound up stuck with Po, who apparently couldn't tell an interrogation from a hole in the ground. At the same time, Nathan was trying to convince Colin that what he said back at the panda village was just a ruse to try and stall the ceremony. Yet as usual, Colin's disgust over everything that happens in the world drowned out Nathan.

The two were sitting a cell at the prison early in the morning; it was there living quarters while they were being held captive, which was better than the panda village that held the cult.

"Stop poking it!" Colin slapped Nathan's hand away from a large bruise on his neck, making Nathan massaged his hand.

"So Tigress did that to you?"

Colin looked away, not wanting to admit it. Tigress and Po walked by their cells again, ready for another interrogation. Nathan looked at his friend then jumped up, "Could we switch?"

Tigress and Po looked at each other; Po simply shrugged so Tigress agreed. Tigress forcefully grabbed Nathan by the arm and took him out of the cell. She then dragged him over to an interrogation room at the far end of the prison.

The interrogation went by smoothly, much to Tigress' dismay; she really wanted to hurt who she thought was Tai Lung. Nathan complied and answered every question.

"How did you survive?" Tigress asked.

"I told you Tai Lung didn't survive," Nathan whined. "Neither did Shen. We're just two kids who got stuck in these bodies." A pause grew between the two.

"You expect me to believe that stupid story?"

"In all honesty, yes," Nathan smirked, which seemed to anger Tigress. She sighed then tried another question.

_Meanwhile…_

"So, are you gonna admit how you're still alive?" Po asked.

"No," Colin spoke, annoyed at the situation.

"Oh," Po backed away to think of another question.

Unlike his previous interrogations with Tigress, Colin's encounter with Po was completely one-sided. Every time Po asked him a question, Colin would throw some sort of retort at him, causing the panda to double-take and try another tactic. On top of that the question he asked were so pathetic that even a two year old could laugh at who asked them.

"Look Shen, I know you don't like me and all, but could you please just stop with the whole cool façade," Po said. "Seriously, it's starting to get embarrassing".

"The only thing that's embarrassing is how stupid you are, tubby," Colin said. "I've told you before, my name is not Shen, I don't have anything to do with that freaking cult showing up, and I'd prefer it if we were somewhere more comfortable".

"And you really expect me to believe something like that?" Po asked.

"He's telling the truth, Po."

By bending his neck over the back of the chair, Colin could see a red panda standing in the doorway. It was Shifu. And he didn't seem happy that one of his best students was making a fool of himself.

"Master Shifu!" Po gasped, jumping out of his chair in shock and fumbling into a rather hasty bow. "I didn't know you were here- what do you mean he's telling the truth?"

"I'll explain later," Shifu said. "First, I think it would be prudent to stop Tigress from mauling our other young friend".

_Meanwhile…_

Tigress was getting sick of Nathan not telling the truth (or what she would perceive as the truth). Every question she tried asking seemed to be met with some of answer that she obviously didn't want to hear, she was making her angrier by the minute.

"What were those lackeys doing?"

"They're not our lackeys. They're a cult, Myrkor; they tried to put the real Tai Lung and Shen into us…!"

Nathan jumped to avoid Tigress flying at him, causing her to end up punching a hole in the wall in sheer rage. Nathan gulped, realizing just how much Colin had provoked her at once.

_I wonder how Colin's holding up_ he thought to himself.

Tigress grabbed Nathan by the neck and raised him to his feet "You have one more chance Tai Lung, how did you survive? What were they doing?"

"I don't feel like reiterating myself," Nathan stood firm just as he was sent flying across the room. She grabbed him and was about to strike again when a voice stopped her.

"Tigress stop, he speaks the truth," Nathan and Tigress both turned around to see Shifu standing at the doorway, Po and Colin were standing behind him, as if they were some sort of bodyguards.

"Ox and Croc were interrogating one of the cult members when they came clean," Shifu said. "I know they're not really Tai Lung and Shen. Now, release him".

With a growl, Tigress loosened her grip on Nathan, allowing him to slip out of her grasp on his own strength.

"Well it's about time." He muttered before walking over to Shifu.

"Tigress, you and Po tell the Five the situation and prepare yourselves," Shifu said. "If this cult is what I think it is, there will be very serious danger on the horizon".

"Understood, master," the both of them said while bowing, then left without another word.

"So, how much longer until this remote of yours is repaired?" Shifu asked.

"Not long," Colin said. "I've already fixed the major circuits, so all it needs is a lot of energy to jumpstart it".

"Good," Shifu said. "It's best if you two get started on that as soon as you can".

"You don't have to tell me twice," Colin said. "I've been waiting to get out of this dimension since day one".

**Well he'd better get it done soon, 'cuz with that cult hanging around, thins will get very interesting**

**R&R, plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	8. Electricity That's Hard to Come By

**What up, guys**

**New Chapter, Same Craziness**

**Enjoy**

After Colin and Nathan received the consent of Shifu to do what they needed to in order to get the remote operational again the two went straight to work. However, as they were still unfamiliar with the general area, the planning process was a little slow. To make matters worse, Nathan was being completely uncooperative, rather spending time socializing with the others, forcing Colin to come up with ideas about how to recharge the Multiverse remote by himself. Eventually he grew tired of this and had forced his hand.

"Nathan! Get up!" Colin yelled as he slapped Nathan's curled form after a week of coming up with ideas.

"Huh, what?"

"We were supposed to be working on the stupid remote since two days ago!" Colin squawked. "Do you have any idea how close Myrkor could be now?"

Feeling like there was no point in arguing with the guy, Nathan finally got up and cracks his back.

"Fine, so do you have any ideas?" Nathan asked, the two leaving the room to start working.

"Well I have come up with a few plans along with the help of the others," Colin said.

"A few plans along with the help of the others? You don't trust yourself enough for a single plan?"

Colin was about to speak but stopped himself, remembering that it was Nathan's constant interferences that had gotten them into this mess in the first place.

"Shut up," he snapped.

The two made their way outside to see dark clouds blanketing the sky which made Colin smile.

"Yes, the weather's perfect!" Colin declared

Nathan looked at him curiously. It was one thing to be near the guy, but it was quite another to think that an oncoming thunderstorm was 'perfect'.

"Perfect for what…?" Nathan started to ask but was hushed when he turned around to a metal pole standing atop the Tower, acting as a lightning rod.

"One of the animals living here insisted I used his sword as a lightning rod," Colin explained. "With this weather, all I have to do connect the two ends with these wires and will be all set to go…!"

Colin stopped himself when he heard a slight squeak, both looked up to see that the sword had slightly tilted, leading to land on the roof.

"Damn, it's out of position," Colin moaned. "Nathan, can you climb back up there and fix it?"

Nathan nodded then proceeded to climb the many roofs to get to the main roof. Colin looked up to some rumbling in the sky, signaling a bolt of lightning was about to strike.

"Hurry up, it's about to start!" Colin yelled up.

Nathan reached the biggest roof and grabbed the sword, placing it back in its holder.

"Like this?"

ZAP

Lightning had struck the sword and Nathan along with it, causing him to jump to the ground, tendrils of smoke arising from his burnt body.

"Well that filled it up a bit," Colin said, casually walking up to him. "You just had to take the most of it didn't you Nathan?"

"I think my heart stopped," Nathan moaned.

"Well get up soon, we still have to fill this up all the way." Colin said as Master Ox came toward them, no doubt noticing the amount of noise the attempt had made.

"What's going on?" he asked when he reached the duo.

"Nothing really." Colin shrugged. "Just a recharging attempt somehow going wrong. Just take care of Nate while I figure out what to do from here".

After a few hours at the infirmary, Nathan followed the directions of a note given to him by Crane and went down to a waterwheel near the docks, where Colin was hooking wires to it with the help of Master Croc.

"Ok, what is this supposed to be?" Nathan asked.

"Manual labor, Nathan," Croc said. "I used to use these things to train, and thanks to the modifications Colin had needed for his test, we should be able to get enough energy to fix your remote in no time".

"And who's going to be the guinea pig this time?" Nathan asked.

"You." Colin said, pointing to a platform that led to a bar that was hanging over the wheel.

"Are you kidding me?" Nathan gawked. "You know full well cats can't swim".

"Actually they can. They just don't like getting wet".

With a groan, Nathan got on the wheel and began running in place. With all the conditioning Tai Lung had gotten before he died, Nathan was able to make it turn very quickly. In seconds, it was moving fast enough to begin charging power.

"Keep it up, dude," Colin said.

Right as he said that, Nathan stepped in a hole in one of the planks, sinking himself into the wheel and splashed in and out of the water several times from all the momentum he had gotten.

"Hey Croc, you remember those Wily E. Coyote shows I told you about yesterday?" Colin asked.

"Of course," Croc said.

"Yeah, this is something like that." Colin said as the wheel came to a full stop with Nathan face-down in the water.

Croc quickly pulled him out of the hole and onto dry land. His entire body was drenched in water and head was shivering so violently that he looked like a blur.

"That… sucked…!" Nathan managed to say.

"Not for me," Colin laughed. "Unfortunately we still don't have enough juice for it to work. Go dry yourself off until the next test".

Once he finally was no longer soaking wet, not to mention in a dry pair of forest green pants he had somehow managed to find, Nathan found Colin messing with some blown up version of a gerbil wheel. Colin turned to Nathan, who had a dull expression on his face.

"This had better be a joke," Nathan moaned.

"Nope and you're going to be running in it," Colin smiled. Nathan sighed then climbed inside. Then began running on all fours, causing the wheel to spin.

"Okay that's good Nathan, keep going," Colin encouraged Nathan, who was beginning to run faster and faster until he finally slipped, causing him to be carried by the spinning wheel until finally being launched out and crashing into a wall.

"All right, we're almost there just a little more…" Colin passed by the crater in the wall that Nathan created and almost cracked up when he saw him nearly bent over, "…coming Nathan?"

"Hey guys, how goes the remote?" the two were interrupted by Po running up to them.

"Close Po, we just need a little more power," Colin said while trying to avoid eye contact with him.

"Hey um do you mind if I see it?" Po asked. Nathan looked at Colin for some sort of an answer. Colin thought it over, knowing full well that no matter how many times he said no Po would still insist on seeing it.

Colin finally sighed, "Just be careful with it panda".

Colin reluctantly handed him the remote. Po grasped it and turned around to look at it in greater detail. His entire face light up in delight as he looked over the device.

"So this thing can make someone travel across dimensions?" Po asked, noticing a small hole on the bottom and stuck his finger inside of it in curiosity.

The instant he did he lit up like a Christmas light. Colin and Nathan watched in slight amusement as Po managed to get his pudgy finger out of the hole.

"Well what do you think?" Nathan asked, laughing a little.

"I think it burned my finger," Po looked at his finger and began sucking on it. Colin snatched the remote then suddenly squawked in anger.

"Way to go, you idiot!" Colin yelled. "You drained all of the battery power, now we have to start all over again!"

Colin tossed the remote into the air in pure frustration only to realize his mistake. Nathan caught it then looked at it for a moment.

"Well what are you waiting for, an engraved invitation? Give it here!" Colin said angrily.

Nathan looked at it closely for a moment longer then finally brought his hand into a fist.

"Nathan what are you doing?" Colin asked as he saw Nathan do this.

Using his fist, Nathan lightly tapped the main screen of the remote. Suddenly the three heard sounds of machines starting up. Colin grabbed the remote and saw the remote turning on. Colin looked amazed for a moment but then turned to Nathan.

"I hate you," he moaned.

"I know." Nathan smiled as he patted Colin's head feathers.

"Ok, don't do that again," Colin said, walking away from the two of them.

**Well, it looks like the remote is finally charged. Now they'll be able to go home… or not**

**R&R plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	9. the Window Closed Fast

**Hello again, peoplezez**

**New chapter, Same craziness**

**Enjoy**

Colin was still sore to the fact that Nathan had managed to fix the remote in the stupidest way imaginable but he digressed; he was just excited that he was finally heading home. He had gotten well beyond sick of being stuck in Shen's body, as well as being hounded by Myrkor, that he felt as if the very thought of staying here any longer would tear him apart. Now that they were finally able to get home, it felt like he was going to do something he was never able to do before.

Colin and Nathan were standing in front of the Tower of the Sacred Flame looking out over Gongmen city in midday. In a few moments they were going to say goodbye to the others before heading back to their own reality. Colin sighed and smiled a little.

"Y'know, I think I'm starting to appreciate the other things in life besides technology," Colin said still looking over the city.

"Have you now?" Nathan asked.

"Yeah, I mean I guess I just realized technology can be a temporary thing but this…" Colin gestured to all around him "…this is here to stay."

"Did we just cram a moral into this story at the last plausible moment?" Nathan suddenly asked turning to Colin.

"Yup, I think so, not even one that fit's the story at that…?" Colin nodded before realizing Master Shifu and the others were standing behind them.

"You two had best get going; I'm not certain how soon Myrkor will be here." Shifu said, standing beside the two, looking over the city as well.

"You don't have to tell us twice; finally we'll get back into a human body and get Myrkor of our tails." Nathan nodded in agreement.

After bowing to the masters, and Colin giving a sort of spastic jerk in Tigress' direction as an attempt at a respectable salute, the duo back up a considerable distance to make sure they didn't suck anyone else up when they activated the remote. When they were at a safe distance, Colin began typing in the coordinates into the remote.

"How long is this going to take?" Nathan asked.

"It's only going to take a few seconds." Colin said, not taking his eyes off the screen. "The problem with the last time was that I had the shuffle button turned on the whole damn time…"

"Oh my god." Nathan muttered under his breath at the stupidity.

"…Now that it's turned off, I should be able to… WHAT?! YOU'VE GOTTA BE KIDDING ME?!"

The scream came so fast that nobody saw it coming. Once Nathan and the masters regained their composure, they all stared at Colin, making sure they were out of kicking distance as the unwitting peacock looked as if he was seeing red.

"What's going on?" Tigress asked.

"According to this stupid thing, we've been thrown outside of our Multiverse Window," Colin snapped.

"Multiverse Window?" Nathan asked. "What the hell is a Multiverse Window?"

"I think we all need an explanation for that one," Mantis said.

Everyone watched as Colin just stood there shaking with rage. None of them were in any way willing to try anything to calm him down in the mood that he was in. They had more than once known that the stress from being stuck in this world made him lash out from time to time and were in no hurry for him to attack them. After a while, Colin began to regain some of his composure and calmed down.

"I don't really get it either," Colin said. "Apparently, despite all the obvious difference each reality has, they all have one thing in common: they need a specific reality as a kind of guideline in order for them to exist. Thanks to Nathan's little grandstand in that one reality, the remote must have overloaded and sent us into the first separate reality it could lock onto".

"So let me see if I've got this straight," Nathan said. "You're telling me that the remote dumped us here when it was destroyed and didn't give us a way to get back to our own reality?"

"Yep," Colin said. "Get comfortable, dude. It looks like we're gonna be here for a while longer".

"What are we going to do now?" Crane asked. "With your device unable to get you back to your own home, Myrkor will have an easier time getting to you guys than before".

"Exactly," Shifu said. "That's why I suggest that the both of you should be separated for the time being".

"What?" the both of them gawked. "Why?"

"Because Myrkor will use this information to their advantage when they find out," Shifu said. "By keeping you guys as far away from each other as possible, we'll be able to delay their plans long enough to find a way to get you guys safely back to your world. Nathan will stay here in Gongmen City with Master Ox and Croc while the rest of us will bring Colin back to the Jade palace".

Nathan knew something was wrong the moment Shifu said that when he saw Colin's eye twitch uncontrollably. He could tell the guy was still freaked out by the fact that they were still stuck here, not to mention that he never really enjoyed taking orders from anyone.

"No!" he continuously screamed between words that made the masters drop their jaws and Tigress cover Po's ears.

"Colin, dude, calm down!" Nathan spoke with surprise to Colin's outburst.

"Calm down?" Colin yelled. "You want me to calm down? After realizing we're still stuck in this backwards universe with no tech in any freaking way, shape or form?!"

"I thought you said you were starting to appreciate the other things in life?" Nathan asked, starting to raise his voice.

"Screw that man!" Colin screamed. "I thought I was going to get out of this place. I didn't really mean it!"

The two proceeded to bicker for minutes before the two finally ended with a roar and a squawk. The two stared at each other hatefully.

"Y'know what, that's fine with me." Colin snapped, turning his back to his former friend. "Separate us. See if I care. I'm sick and tired of all your idiotic fun loving crap Nate."

"And I've had enough of you holier than thou attitude, you pretentious jerk." Nathan spat, facing away as well.

The master looked on in shock as the two former friends stormed away from each other. Unable to say anything to either of them with the mood they're in, Ox and Croc awkwardly made their way back inside the tower while Shifu and the others went after Colin.

"Hope you like this world Nate, 'cause when I fix the remote, I'm leaving you behind," Colin muttered.

**Ouch. Looks like that friendship didn't last very long now did it.**

**R&R plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	10. Stuck in the Past

**Hello again, peoplezez**

**New chapter, Same craziness**

**Enjoy**

Nathan looked out from the highest point of the tower, watching Ox, Croc and the wolf guards fight off countless Myrkor agents. It had only been a few days since the masters had ordered the separation of him and Colin and it was clear how well it was working. It was obvious they were slowly losing the fight because they were slowly being pushed back. Nathan simply sighed and walked over to the throne and placed his head on the frame.

"Something troubling you Nathan?"

He turned around to see the Soothsayer, who had come back the day after the separation to keep an eye on Nathan, quizzically looking him over in the doorway.

"Just in thought I guess," Nathan sighed.

"About your friend?" she asked.

"Feh wouldn't call him that anymore," Nathan spat. The Soothsayer went to his side.

"Nathan, I know the things Colin said to you weren't nice, but you have to put this petty jealousy aside and help your friend," she said.

"Jealousy?" Nathan repeated. "What in the world does Colin have that I'm jealous of? I've got more friends, both here and in my own world, than he has ever managed to obtain in his entire life. I've been to more social events than he's even been invited to. If he's unwilling to even try to have some fun in this universe then that's his problem".

"Do you know anything about Colin's past?"

"No, and why should I care?"

"Because he is your friend".

Nathan rolled his eyes and turned away from the Soothsayer, only to be hit upside the head by her cane.

"Don't you know that's rude?"

"Fine what's so special about Colin's stupid past?" Nathan turned on seeing the Soothsayer with a bowl, one of Colin's feathers and a piece of his robe in hand.

She placed both in the bowl and threw something into it that made a fizzle noise. Nathan backed up to see images of a boy, alone in a school, watching other kids playing and listening to the echoing laughter emanating from around him without so much as moving from the wall he was leaning.

"At a young age, a judge had taken him out of his parents care due to constant allegations of emotional abuse," the Soothsayer said. "He was adopted several times over the years, but none of them lasted more than a few months due to the constant aggressive mood swings that dominated his mind. When you met him, he had left the orphanage he was staying in a month before. He has never had any lasting friends, and therefore doesn't know how to treat them".

"I…I had no idea, he never said anything," Nathan said, looking down in guilt. He looked back over at the fight. He nodded than ran out on the Soothsayer.

"Where are you going?" she yelled.

"If he does intend to leave, I at least want to make things right before he does so," Nathan smiled. The Soothsayer smiled, knowing she had done right.

Nathan ran out of the throne room and made his way to the bottom of the tower, making sure he grabbed a rope that led right to the ground. However, just as he opened the door outside, the cult members immediately spotted him.

"There he is," one of the cult members yelled. "Somebody grab him".

Nathan had to close the door to avoid a pair of lizards from getting in. He then threw all his way on the door to keep the cult from getting in. After a few minutes of effort, he was knocked away by a komodo dragon carrying a small hammer. He then had to dodge several swings from the komodo dragon because he had no way to defend himself. Luckily, one of the wolves was able to intercept it before it was able to do any damage to Nathan.

"Are you all right?" the wolf asked.

"I'm okay… I think," Nathan said.

"Good to know," the wolf said. "Now stay here and don't try anything until we get rid of the cult".

It turned out, from what Nathan found out later, that his little distraction was what the masters needed to route the attack. Worried about what would happen if Nathan was caught, Ox and Croc redoubled their efforts and were able to push the cult back over the wall and out of the city. Once they were finished, the wolf that saved Nathan earlier motioned for him to come out while the masters came back in the walls with looks of concern on their faces.

"What were you thinking, Nathan?" Ox asked. "The whole point of me telling you to stay in the tower was to keep you safe from Myrkor and yet you still jeopardize it."

"Oh, will you relax," Nathan said. "It's not like they got me".

"Well, it's a good thing you managed to fight off that cult member on your own," master Ox said.

"Nathan didn't fight off that cult member," the wolf member said. "If I didn't get there in time, that cult member would have taken him out in an instant".

Nobody said anything for a second. Then, to them immense surprise of everyone there, master Croc kicked Nathan right in the gut and pinned him to a wall

"All right, that's it," he said. "I can handle the pointless conversations and the lack of trust you have in Colin, but now you're telling us that you're a sixteen year old, happy-go-lucky wuss? Well you, sir, are pathetic. So don't even think about heading after Colin because we're not going anywhere until we do a complete overhaul on this sad thing you call a life".

With that, Croc let go of Nathan and made his way back into the tower. Nathan and Ox, after a few moments, went in after him.

"I think master Croc spent too much time with Colin," Nathan whispered.

* * *

><p>"Colin this is a very serious issue." Viper said to Colin. "If you truly leave Nathan behind, it will jeopardize peace in this world by giving Myrkor a chance to revive Tai Lung."<p>

It had been a whole week since Colin and Nathan had been separated by the masters. Colin, who was still fuming about Nathan's ignorance of the situation they were in, was trying to get the Multiverse remote to bypass the Multiverse Window and get him back to his own reality. This job was incessantly torturous, and with Myrkor making their way toward the Jade Palace at the moment, he was on overdrive to make the final adjustments, a process that would have been less of a drag if Viper, Monkey, and Crane weren't trying to stall him for some reason while Po, Tigress, Shifu and Mantis were fighting the cult off.

"And I should care because…?" Colin responded blandly, checking over the remote for anything wrong for the fiftieth time that day.

"Because the guilt of dooming an entire dimension will haunt you for the rest of your life, Colin." Crane stepped forward thinking he brought up a good point; he was angered to hear Colin laugh.

"I think you're giving me too much credit," Colin chuckled pressing the button once more, sparks flew out of the front but nothing more.

"So you don't care if you leave your best friend behind and doom an entire dimension?" Monkey asked, making his way in front of Colin and getting right in his face. Colin let out a fake gasp.

"My, my you catch on so fast," Colin said with fake enthusiasm, still configuring the remote.

"Wow… if I didn't know any better, I'd say you're jealous of Nathan," Crane said.

That last comment seemed to work… for a little while. It did manage to take Colin's focus away from the remote, but it now brought his full attention on the three of them.

"Jealous of what?" Colin snapped. "I've got more charisma in my left pinky than he has in my entire damn body, and he knows it. Unfortunately, charisma is not going to get us any more safe, any more in our own reality, or any less hounded by a cult. Now, I've tried being patient with him and wait for him to realize this. Yet he still doesn't even try to care that his life is in danger. So why bother to even care about his well being?"

Viper finally had enough of this and snatched it out of his hands. She immediately threw it to Monkey and put out of reach.

"Oi!" Colin said, trying to get the remote back from Monkey.

Instead Monkey threw it to Crane, who immediately took to the sky, making sure Colin, whose was having trouble flying, from getting it back.

"Don't you think you should give the person who's been at your side for this ordeal a second chance?" Crane snapped.

"Don't you think I should say 'screw you' to the person who brought me to this stupid universe in the first place?" Colin retorted.

The group was interrupted by and out of breath Zeng barging into the room.

"Myrkor finally breached the wall," Zeng gasped. "We need your assistance immediately!"

Viper and Monkey nodded to Crane and ran off with Po. Crane looked at Colin and snorted.

"You know what, I'm going to give this back to you," Crane said as he lowered the remote to Colin's grasp.

"Geez thanks," Colin said, reaching for it before it was brought up again and replaced by Crane's face.

"But know this, now everyone, even in your dimension, will know you for a selfish little brat who abandons friends".

He plopped the remote in his wings and ran off to catch up with the others. Colin shrugged off the remark and pressed the button. This time the portal successfully opened, making Colin excitedly screamed to himself. As he was about to make his way toward the portal, he stopped and thought about what Crane said; it did hurt him a little on the inside about leaving Nate but he shrugged the feeling away with a smile. He cursed to himself when it returned a second later. With a sigh he closed the portal.

"Dammit," Colin complained to himself.

As he ran, he hoped he wouldn't have to really do anything. Unfortunately that wasn't the case as he made it to the main hall only to find the palace over run by Myrkor agents and the others nearly overwhelmed. The instant he noticed this, the cult members noticed him.

"Double dammit".

"Well, well, if it isn't the little brat who managed to escape our high master," a large komodo dragon, obviously the leader of this attack, laughed. "I must say your little stroke of luck caused us a bit of trouble a few weeks ago. But we've let it go. After all, a guy who's trapped in his own head 24/7 can't possibly stand up to us on his own".

That insult seemed to have done the trick. Colin was now shaking so violently that it looked like he was having a conniption. Backed into a corner, Po and the others could only watch as the mind games continued to have its effect. However, instead of backing down from the sight, the komodo dragon simply laughed.

"Dear me, it looks like I struck a nerve," he said. "Tell me, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to give off some smart aleck remarks that you can't even back up? Or are you going to run to that controlling mother of yours and…!"

Colin's wings suddenly shot out and grabbed the komodo dragon by the throat. He then pulled him so close to his face that you could almost see his eyes turn blood red.

"Coolness… SMASH!" the irate teenager screamed.

The scene that followed could only be described as utter chaos. Driven by the blind fury the words caused, Colin picked up the giant lizard and threw him into the cult members that had corned his allies. The others watched in shock as he attacked the cult members with blow after blow of attacks that were not related to any form of Kung-Fu yet nonetheless brutal. After what seemed like an eternity, the cult members retreated out of the tower, leaving the still enraged Colin staring at them through the door.

"That… was the scariest thing I have ever seen," Po whimpered.

"Yeah… does it make me a pessimist to say that's a bad omen?" Tigress asked.

"I'd say so," Mantis said. "What do we do now?"

"I'm not so sure," Shifu said. "But there's one thing I know for certain: We have to train Colin to keep his rage from controlling him. If he continues to let his emotions get the better of him, he could turn out worse than Tai Lung or Shen".

**Well, between Nathan's wussiness and Colin's dominant personal demons, I'd say things are going to start getting pretty interesting**

**R&R plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	11. Special Strokes for Special Blokes

**What up peoplezez.**

**I probably should've explained the line between the two scenes better. Since Colin and Nathan were separate from each other, I decided to use that to make it clear which part of the chapter was about whom**

**Enjoy**

"Okay Nathan, are you ready?" Croc asked taking a dignified fighting stance.

Nathan simply stood there, unsure as to what to do. It had been two days since master Croc had made it clear that he wasn't going to do anything until he finished the "overhaul" on why he was unable to defend himself when Myrkor had attacked. The butterflies that were in Nathan's stomach since yesterday had now turned into a ball of withering snakes that made him feel extremely nauseous.

"Uh, sure?" Nathan spoke uneasily.

He regretted saying that as he suddenly saw Croc charge at him with a fist ready to strike. Nathan, in a panic, grabbed his fist and redirected it to his side, letting Croc stumble through. Croc was stunned a little then got ready to strike again, this time with his foot. Nathan took a jump of a step backwards, just making himself out of Croc's range. With a grunt, Croc jumped up into the air and got ready to strike. But Nathan simply ducked, avoiding the attack. At that point, Croc had seen enough.

"What the hell was that?" Croc snapped, referring to Nathan's dodging tactics.

"Well I never liked hurting people a lot." Nathan shrugged. "A few little things like a slap were fine by me but any more and..." Nathan stopped and looked down.

"But why?" Croc asked.

"When I was younger, me and a friend got in a fight over some trivial thing," Nathan said." I actually fought, not do what I did. But then he took a bad step down a flight of stairs and got hurt very badly, like hospital badly. He never spoke to me again because of that. So from that point on I never fought again".

Croc walked over to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Reminds me a lot of a friend of mine," Croc admitted.

"Who, Ox?"

"No, you wouldn't know him, but he had a similar case, he got in a fight with his brother and thought he killed him."

"Oh my god." Nathan gasped, mortified at what he just heard.

"He felt similar to you, he vowed never to fight again" Croc said. "But when we were attacked one night by a raid, he got over it and saved all of us. He learned something that night. There are some people out there that deserve to get hurt." Nathan smiled at the morbid humor of the moral. Croc took another fighting stance "Ready to try again?" he asked, earning a confident nod from Nathan. Croc smiled and delivered another punch, only to be caught by Nathan.

"But I thought you-"

"Wait for it," Nathan winked. Croc's other hand was suddenly grabbed as he felt something strike the back of his legs. In the next moment, he was on the ground, he had been tripped.

"I always wanted to do that," Nathan laughed.

"What the hell was that?" Croc asked.

"That was just something I saw on TV once." Nathan shrugged.

"That was good in all but how about we try actual combat".

"Okay fine," Nathan sighed.

Nathan spent the rest of the time learning actual combat from Master Ox, which, to Nathan, was severely unfair. The master was twice his height and easily five times his weight. Nathan had a sinking suspicion that him learning actual combat with master Ox was Croc's way of paying him back for tripping him up earlier.

"Croc told me about that little stunt you pulled tripping him."

"Did he now?" Nathan was almost afraid to ask, and was mortified when Ox nodded.

"I figure we could tie that in with what I'm about to teach you." Ox smiled, taking fighting stance.

Nathan gulped. Ox intentionally launched slow punch at him. Nathan grabbed it landed a punch at him. When he heard fingers cracking though, he got out of Nathan's grip and saw him holding his hand.

Ox chuckled a little. "I think I saw what you did wrong..." Ox held his hooves up "...try again".

Nathan shrugged and hit his hoof, gripping his hand with similar results.

"Okay I see it now," Ox held up his fist up. "You see, you're using the flat of your fist, you wanna be using this part," he said pointing towards the knuckles. Nathan mimicked him. "Good, now try again," Ox smiled moving his arm to the side. Nathan built up then threw a punch. After a moment Nathan grabbed his knuckles.

"Dammit, that hurt more than the first time," Nathan complained, now blowing on his knuckles to numb the pain.

"Perhaps, but feel this now," Ox let Nathan rub his hand where he had punched; he felt a decent sized bump.

"And in time you won't even feel it in your knuckles anymore," Ox said earning a smile from Nathan. Ox smiled back and held his fists up again.

"Now, again!"

* * *

><p>"Inner peace… inner peace…" Shifu muttered.<p>

Shifu and Colin were both at the pool with the dragon statue over it deep in meditation. It had been several days since Colin's rather ugly display of power and aggression during Myrkor's attack on the Jade Palace. Since then, Shifu and the others have been trying desperately to get rid of whatever issues the guy was holding onto. However, every attempt ended up the same way: Colin lashing out on and someone taking the brunt of it. Shifu now decided to use a different tactic and was trying to get into Colin's subconscious and discover the root of his anger.

"Clear your mind, Colin," Shifu said. "Let go of all the pain you have been holding onto, let go of your emotions. Only by letting go will I be able to know what is trouble that has been troubling you".

Unfortunately, as it has been abundantly clear over the past several days, 'let go of your emotions' was something that Colin would not do. With a squawk and a rather loud splash, the peacock got up and marched out of the hall.

"Oh, this is going to be a long day," Shifu moaned.

_That night…_

After a long a somewhat disappointing day of putting up with everyone's attempts to help him, Colin was sitting on the roof of the Jade Palace looking up at the night sky. He didn't know how he managed to get himself up there but it didn't really matter at that point. He just wanted some time away from all the lameness that he was dealing with.

"Rough day?" a new voice said behind him.

Turning around, Colin saw Mr. Ping, Po's adoptive father, making his way to where he was sitting. He gave a soft snort when the goose sat down next to him.

"You don't know what rough is, sista," Colin said.

"This is not how I wanted to spend my first trip here," Mr. Ping said. "I hadn't been here for five minutes and I find out my only son doesn't have the time to visit".

"Yeah well, that's not really my problem if you can't manage your time," Colin said.

Mr. Ping, though taken slightly aback by the brusqueness of Colin's word, did not leave his side. Instead he just stared up at him as if he was something new.

"Shifu told me about what's been going on," he said. "Now, I'm not sure what happened to you could have warranted this, but I know you shouldn't take it out on the people who are trying to help you. Why, I'm positive your parent's loved you enough to tell you not to treat-".

"Oh shut up." Colin snapped, cutting the goose off. "My parents never loved me. They loved controlling me. Everything I ever did was never good enough for them. They always tried to regulate every aspect of my life and made it impossible for me to ever be happy. Fortunately, it got to the point where it got so ugly that a judge had to get involved and revoke their right to take care of me. Other people have since claimed they were there to help me, but nobody understood what had happened to me. So thanks for the sympathy and all, but just don't get involved, ok".

Having said that, Colin got up and made his way toward the window he used to get in. He didn't even look up when Mr. Ping go up to follow him through the window.

"There are people here who are worried about you, Colin." Mr. Ping said. "They really want you to be happy".

"Oh really?" Colin said in mock surprise. "Well if they really want to help, they'd do well to stay out of my way".

"They're not going to just do that you know," Mr. Ping said. "There's no way they're going to just sit back and watch you go down this little path of self destruction. When my son first thought he wasn't the Dragon Warrior, he was able to pull through in the end. Po was able to find the strenght to pull through and I know you can to".

"Yeah well I hate to break it to you dude, but i'm not Po," Colin said. "I'm just a normal guy who's had too many not so normal problems happen to him. Now if you'll excuse me, I want to be alone for a while".

"All right, if it makes you feel better, I'll leave you alone," Mr. Ping said. "But just remember one thing, okay. No matter how badly your life had been, there are still people who care about you".

Colin just stood there and watched Mr. Ping went further down the hallway. Out of the corner of his mouth, a slight smile began to form.

**Well, this was a rather interesting chapter to create.**

**This was only a filler chapter to keep the story going, so don't blame me for the little action.**

**R&R plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	12. Tests Designed to Fail

**What up, guys**

**New Chapter, Same Craziness**

**Enjoy**

"We're almost there, Colin." Shifu said while carrying a lantern, walking up a natural stone path on the side of a mountain.

Colin looked up and saw the moon, just about to reach the highest point in the sky, and silently wished he was still in bed. The past few hours had been possibly the worst he's had in living memory. He was still mainly miffed about the fact that Mr. Ping had told everyone about his past, but being woken up for this was up there as well.

"There had better be a point to this Shifu." Colin mumbled, still rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"Oh, there it is Colin, look where you are".

Colin looked at his surrounding upon hearing Shifu speak; he had been brought to a cave. Upon adjusting to the light he could see the interior, the floor was a pond with a stone tablet in the center. He heard the faint sound of dripping water and looked up. A stone dragon was etched into the ceiling, releasing a drop of water from its maw every few seconds.

"Okay…why are we here?" Colin asked.

"In the past, countless kung fu masters have come here to battle their inner demons to finally obtain inner peace," Shifu said. "Many failed, only three have succeeded, Po and I being two of them."

"Who was the third?" Colin asked.

"That is of no concern to you," Shifu snapped. "The point is this is your last hope of possibly hoping to contain your rage".

Colin grumbled to himself. He still didn't know what Shifu was going to have him do, but he could already tell he wasn't going to like it one bit.

"At midnight, when the full moon is at its highest point, the image of your inner demons will appear before you, you must defeat them, alone." Shifu explained, picking up the lantern and leaving. "I'll come back in the morning to retrieve you".

Colin watched as Shifu left the cave. Once the lantern was out of range, the only light was the glow of the moon as it remained high in the sky.

"Feh, that's a load." Colin said angrily before kneeling down. "They probably just want me out of the palace is all, finally got sick of me. Quite honestly, I don't blame them".

Colin sighed while getting into a meditative position. However, before he could even begin trying to calm himself down, he started shivering for no apparent reason.

"Brr, did it just get colder in here or something?" he asked himself.

Looking up, Colin saw a very thick for rolling into the cave and blanketed the surrounding. Immediately on edge, he quickly rolled himself into a standing position and pulled out two of Shen's old blades to defend himself. Then, to his immense horror, echoing voices filled the cavern.

_"I thought I told you to take out the trash an hour ago? Hurry up and take it out, you little brat!" _

_"That was a warning, you freak. The next time you go beyond out authority again, the punishment will be much more severe"._

"_Those children you see in the street are a crude symbol of life's failures. Hard work and tough love are the only real friends you will ever need"._

_"If we've told you once, we told you a thousand times, it is not your place to defy us. Now go to your room and stay there until we sort this mess out"._

A thick sheet of gray fog pouring from the dragon's maw, split in two, and touched the ground in front of the terror stricken peacock. Colin, unable to will his body to do what he wanted anymore, watched as it solidified into two separate entities. The bigger one was a balding man weighing at least 300 plus pounds. He was wearing an ugly turtleneck sweater, torn blue pants, and beat up grey shoes. The smaller was a woman with slightly graying brown hair, a lightly faded t-shirt with a sports team, khaki shorts, and white sports shoes. Both of them stared at the peacock with matching looks of disdain in their eyes.

_"You were a mistake,"_ the man said. _"I never should have planted the seed version of you in my wife. You are a disgrace to our family name"._

_"Of course he's a disgrace."_ the woman said with a laugh. _"Why else would he have turned out to be a selfish, self centered low life who had sold us out the moment he got the chance?"_

_"I couldn't agree with you more,"_ the man said. _"Let's not forget that the moment he betrayed us he turned into the very thing we tried to protect him against. If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't have been trapped in a jail cell and left to rot in the first place"._

Colin, now completely petrified, dropped the knives and crouched into a feeble position. The abuse the shadows of his parents were giving him was much worse than what his real parents had ever done.

_"Stand up straight when we're addressing you!"_ his father said. A kick to the gut sent Colin splashing into the pond. Gasping for air when resurfacing, he immediately backpedaled when his parents advanced toward him, walking over the water as if it was dry land.

"Leave me alone!" Colin cried. "I-I left you!"

_"Left us?"_ his father snapped. _"You didn't leave us. That spineless judge took you from us when you sold us out to the police and destroyed all the beliefs we had instilled in you. You single handedly destroyed everything we had built up"._

With a wild shriek, Colin plowed through them and bolted out of the cave. The moment he did, the fog instantly cleared, returning the sky to the clear evening he had entered the cave in. Hesitantly, the still freaked out peacock edged his way back into the cave and looked around. The shadows that had been his parents had left, leaving the place peacefully empty. With a sigh of mingled relief and anger, Colin picked up the dropped knives and slipped them back into his robe. Furious and upset about what Shifu set him up to fail at, he pulled out a scroll and pen, wrote a rather nasty message on it, placed both of them in the center of the tablet, then took off into the night.

* * *

><p>"You have improved tremendously Nathan," Ox said walking alongside Nathan and Croc.<p>

The three were about to reach the main outside area where they had been training for the past week. Nathan had improved a lot since he began training. Not only had he become stronger, but he had begun to regain some of his old confidence.

"Thank you master Ox," Nathan said smiling.

"But there is still one more challenge we want you to face."

Before Nathan could ask, they had stepped outside into the palace courtyard. Before him stood Tigress, simply standing there as if waiting for him to show up.

"We convinced Shifu to send her over for a final challenge," Croc said. "Think you're up to it?"

Nathan hesitated before finally nodding, earning a firm slap on the back, causing him to cough a little.

"That's the spirit, now go get her," Croc encouraged.

Nathan stepped into the ring with increasingly shaky steps. He wasn't sure how he got to the center, yet there he was, staring down at Tigress.

"So I heard you've been improving your skills." Tigress smiled while taking stance that startled Nathan.

"Yeah, I have," Nathan was almost afraid to answer.

"Good, because master Ox has asked me not to hold anything back," Tigress said

Nathan let out an extremely audible gulp and started wondering what he'd gotten himself into. Despite the boost in confidence he had gotten the past week, he still couldn't find a part of him that wanted to hurt Tigress. Training with Ox and Croc was easy for him because it was a controlled atmosphere where it could be stopped before things got out of hand. Now that he was fighting Tigress in a free reign, he wasn't sure if he would have the same kind of luck.

"I don't want you backing down now," Tigress said.

"There's no way I'll back down from this." Nathan's voice said before his mind could realize what he said.

"Good, that's more than what I can say about Colin at the moment".

"What…?" Nathan was about to ask but was halted by Croc starting the fight.

"Go!"

Tigress didn't waste any time in going on the offensive. She immediately charged at Nathan and threw a quick volley of moves that Nathan barely had time to block. He was able to break through and throw a few punches of his own, but the strikes were so wild and unfocused that Tigress had no problem ducking under him and scoring a few clean hits on his exposed back.

The match got progressively worse from that point on. Unable to get a single blow in, Nathan had begun to tire himself out to the point where he could no longer protect himself from all of Tigress' attacks.

"Is that the best you can do?" Tigress jokingly added while sending another blow in Nathan's direction. Nathan's response was a sidestep to the right. Nathan put his hands on his knees to catch his breath only to be hit in the face by an aggressive kick from Tigress. Nathan took a step and said nothing. Just as Tigress was about to strike, he heard Nathan laughing darkly.

"Thank you ma'am can I have another?" Nathan spoke with a change in tone that made Tigress uneasy.

"Nathan, are you alright?" Croc asked.

"Never better, just wanna try something".

Nathan surprised everybody by actually being the first to strike; he always let the other strike first. Nathan lunged at Tigress with a fist and just as she was ready to counter with her own, Nathan backed his up and turned it into an open hand, catching her fist. Unfortunately she had telegraphed his attack by grabbing Nathan's wrist and brought it behind his back. Tigress then took advantage of the confusion and grabbed his other paw, allowing her to launch him into a dragon suplex and bounce his head off the ground. She then jumped up and placed her foot firmly on his back.

"And… that's the end of that." Tigress said, stepping off of Nathan so he could get up.

Nathan seemed a little shaken up after the battle. There were even a few tears forming in his eyes, but he tried to hide to hide them. Somehow master Ox and Croc seemed to notice.

"It's all right, Nathan," Ox said. "No one blames you for how you fared. In fact, you did better than what we expected".

Suddenly, to the immense shock of everyone there, Nathan started running. He was already out the palace gates and was running right through the crowd outside before the three of them knew what was going on.

"Nathan, wait." Tigress yelled, running right after him.

Ox and Croc just stood there completely stunned at what had just transpired. What was supposed to have been a training bout had just gone up in smoke.

"Uh… something tells me we didn't plan that one out too well," Ox muttered.

**Somehow I get the feeling that 'the masters overdid it' is a bit of an understatement.**

**Well it definitely looks like the guys are in danger now that they ran off like that**

**R&R plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	13. Darts and Crafts Time

**What up peoplezez**

**New chapter, Same craziness**

**Enjoy**

Colin wasn't sure how he'd managed to sneak back into the barracks, stock up on supplies, retrieve the Multiverse remote, and leave the palace without alerting the others, least of which Shifu, to his presence, but it didn't really matter to him at that point. Now that he felt that the master didn't think that he would be happy, he no longer had business with him or anyone in this reality. He was just glad that Tigress had left to deal with Nathan at the request of Croc because if she had still been there and had caught him, then what he did probably wouldn't have gone down so smoothly.

He was now currently making his way through a forest a few hours north of Gongmen City. He intended to grudgingly pick up Nathan and take him back to their own reality. He was sure that Tigress wouldn't ask too many questions because it hadn't been that long since they last saw each other. With Myrkor still looking for him as well as the masters knowing that he had ran out on them, he had to move either at night or in areas that provided enough coverage that it would be impossible to see him, like the forest for instance.

Unfortunately, the foliage on the ground was so thick that it was proving rather difficult to move around. To try to get more maneuverability, Colin used Shen's halberd to cut a path through. This proved to be a rather difficult chore as there was so much stuff in the way. But Colin didn't really mind doing this because he had learned a long time ago that if you wanted to be happy, you had to be prepared for the long, hard slog.

Eventually, he managed to cut his way through to an open clearing. Feeling a little run down from the cutting he had to do, Colin pocketed the halberd and opened the pack he had carried his supplies in. There were only a few items of non-perishable food left that he hadn't eaten yet as well as a blanket and pillow in case he found a place to crash where no one could find him. It had been a tedious chore, but he didn't really mind it.

After finding a stable place to sit down, Colin began looking for what to eat first. However, he just opened the satchel when he heard a faint rustling in the brush. Sighing over the fact that he would have to kick butt on an empty stomach, Colin closed the satchel up and pulled the halberd back out, making sure it was fully extended before getting into an offensive stance. When he heard giggling though, he stopped moving.

"All right Nathan, you can't stop trying to sneak up on me," he said. "I'm already in a bad enough mood right now, so just give up now and I won't have to hurt you". When the rustling proceeded Colin muttered to himself, "Christ, he's such a pain in the-"

FWIP

"Neck?" Colin stopped his rambling when he felt something small prick his neck. He curiously felt around where the prick was and felt some sort of feathered dart.

"Ah damn," Colin muttered as he began running.

Disregarding his supplies, Colin pelted of in a completely random direction. He prayed he could reach Gongmen City before his attackers did him in.

FWIP

He cursed to himself as he felt another dart stick him in the neck again. He panicked when he realized he was starting to feel a little sluggish and low on feeling in his arms.

"Starting to go numb," he muttered.

He immediately picked up the pace, trying to get out of the way of whoever was attacking him. However, he was finding it a little difficult to move his tingling arms to help build any momentum to keep moving further through the forest.

FWIP

He panicked further when another struck him on the neck again. Colin moaned while wildly flopping his now numb arms side to side. He figured that whatever was in the darts was some sort of toxin designed to knock him out.

"Three… darts… is too… much!" he slurred from the sudden wave of tiredness that struck him.

He did realize that he had to lose them fast, so he quickly ducked behind some trees that formed a bit of an alcove. He then poked his head out of the gap and looked around, confirming that there was no one in sight.

"I… think… I… lost… them," Colin panted heavily.

FWIP

Colin looked at his back and saw five more darts on his neck. Colin's eyes began to roll into the back of his head.

"Hey".

Colin finally fell on his back, overcome by the toxins in the dart. Before passing out, he could barely make out the outline of several pairs of feet moving toward him.

* * *

><p>Tigress was finally starting to lose her patience. After barely managing to follow Nathan into the forest on the outskirts of Gongmen city, she had somehow managed to lose sight of him after tripping over the thick foliage. She immediately began to follow the footprints he'd left behind, but the problem was they would go off in so many random directions that it was becoming a bothersome chore.<p>

Finally, after hours of searching, Tigress found Nathan sitting on the edge of a cliff, looking out over the city. She could still hear the faint sound of whimpering coming from Nathan. When Tigress asked if he was alright she heard a growl.

"Leave me alone…" Nathan's voice cracked.

"Nathan what you did back there, that was good, you almost had me going there for a moment," Tigress insisted.

"No it wasn't, it didn't beat you." Nathan stood up to face her. Tigress seemed offended by the remark.

"Oh excuse me if I wanted to give you a compliment," Tigress snapped suddenly.

"Well yeah, just be sure to really mean it next time," Nathan huffed as he got up and brushed past Tigress. Rather than snapping his neck then and there, Tigress called out.

"But I did mean it," Nathan stopped walking and turned back around to Tigress. "...I really did..." Tigress looked down as if trying to hide something. Nathan was speechless. Had a master of kung fu really complimented his fighting style?

"Uh, thanks...?" Nathan began speaking before he saw Tigress again, smiling. There was something in her smile that made him feel good inside, like he couldn't move anywhere else at the moment. Something didn't want him to leave her. And just as he was enjoying the feeling, it left when he heard something in the distance.

"Did you hear that?" he asked. "It sounded like a dart hitting something".

"What would anyone be doing out here with darts at a time like this?" Tigress asked.

"I don't know but something doesn't feel right about this," Nathan said." Come on. We've got to find out what's going on before we get hit as well".

They made their way back into the jungle, making sure they could hear anything else on the way through the dense foliage. They picked up several more flit of dart movement several times and had to change directions according to where it came from. Unfortunately, the forest was so thick it was hard to tell if they were going the right way or not.

Eventually, they were forced to stop at a nearby group of trees that formed a bit of an alcove. They couldn't hear anymore darts being thrown, so they couldn't tell which way to go.

"Great, now we're lost," Nathan moaned.

"Oh great," Tigress groaned. "Not only are we lost, but we still don't know who- get down!"

Tigress pulled Nathan behind a large bush and put a paw over his mouth to keep him from crying out in surprise. They heard the sound of heavy footprints making their way toward them. Then to the utter shock of them both, Colin bolted his way through several tree branches in front of them and ducked inside the trees. There were several red feathered darts sticking out of his neck, signifying that he was the one whoever had tagged him was after.

"I… think… I… lost… them," Colin panted heavily.

FWIP

From out of nowhere, five more darts hit the back of his neck. He looked at them as if he was a kid staring at a strange new toy.

"Hey." he said drearily before dropping down to the ground with a thud.

Suddenly, the sound of shuffling of feet on the forest floor was heard all around them. Several hooded figures began moving toward them. What was odd was that the robes weren't like the ones Myrkor usually wore.

"What do we do?" Nathan whispered. "We can't just let them take Colin away".

"I know, but what can we do?" Tigress hissed. "They outnumber us three to one. If Colin wasn't out cold, he could probably waylay them no questions asked if he had the right motivation-"

"What do you mean?" Nathan asked.

"Apparently, Colin has some sort of personal issue about his parents that he hasn't been able to let go of," Tigress said. "I don't know what it is, but when that cult mentioned them, he went completely AWOL and nearly annihilated them".

"I know what his problem is," Nathan said.

"Really?" Tigress gasped. "Well, what is it?"

"I think it might be better to wait until he's willing to mention it," Nathan said.

"Assuming of course we can get him out of this mess," Tigress said. "Our only chance would be to scare them away".

With that, the both of them let out simultaneous roars. They couldn't see what was going on, but from the sound of the footprints it had done the job. When the footprints faded away, they immediately got up, slung Colin over Nathan's back, and tried to find a way out of the forest.

"Oh man… this sucker ways a ton," Nathan groaned.

"Keep moving," Tigress said. "I'm not sure how long those creeps will stay away".

Suddenly, one of the carts from the city screeched to a halt in front of them. Inside was a green peacock in a flowery pink robe.

"Get in," the peacock said in a female voice.

"Who are you?" Tigress asked.

"A friend," she said.

Deciding not to question the matter further, Nathan dropped the still unconscious Colin into the cart and followed Tigress inside. The peacock then turned the cart around and steered it in the direction of the city.

**Hmm… a possible romance between Nathan and Tigress… and Colin as well if that peacock is single.**

**R&R plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	14. A New Problem to Deal With

**What up, peoplezez**

**Before we start, we'd just like to say that this is the halfway point of the story… or not, depending on how my mood is at the moment**

**Enjoy**

Tigress, Nathan, and the female peacock found that getting through Gongmen city was difficult during this part of the day. There were so many people in the streets that they had been forced to abandon the cart they were in and walk through. Adding the fact that they had to carry the still unconscious Colin with then, they couldn't make their way through until it was almost midday. When the four made it back to the palace they were greeted by Ox and Croc. When they spotted Colin though, they swore.

"What the hell is he doing here?" Ox asked.

"We think Myrkor caught him and almost brought him back to the village, Nathan and I scared them off and got Colin...?" Tigress began as she heard Colin moaning. Everyone looked to Colin as he began to stir.

"Huh...wha...Ah!"

Colin scrambled out of Nathan's grip not knowing it was him. When he finally made contact to the ground, he hit him in the family jewels. Nathan doubled over moaning to himself.

"Really?" Colin snapped out of his panic to Nathan's voice. "Nathan? Is that you?" Colin turned around and saw Tigress, Croc and Ox, Nathan and someone he didn't know. "Ah, damn," Colin muttered.

"Damn is right Colin." Ox said grabbing Colin by the neck, releasing a low squawk. "We're gonna have a little talk, runt," Ox grumbled picking Colin up and taking him into the palace. The door slammed loudly behind them. Croc turned to the other three after a moment of silence.

"Thank you, both of you," Croc said. "Heh, you should be thanking her, not us," Nathan turned and gestured to the female peacock. Croc stepped to her, extending a hand in thanks. "Well thank you Miss..." Croc froze.

"Lorelei," she spoke quickly then said nothing else. Croc rubbed the back of his head in the silence. Finally he cleared his throat. "Right then, well feel free to stay here Lorelei, you definitely deserve it," Croc said finally, simply earning a nod. With a sigh of surrender he turned back around. "I'm gonna go see how Ox and Colin are," he said quickly opening the door then slamming behind him. Nathan and Tigress turned to Lorelei.

"Oh we forgot to prop-"

Nathan was interrupted by moving tail feathers entering his mouth, causing him to spit a little. As quickly as she entered, she went into the palace also, leaving Nathan and Tigress alone.

"I'd uh, best get inside too, looks like a storms coming," Tigress laughed taking quick steps to the palace doors, delicately closing the behind her. Nathan looked up and saw the dark clouds approaching.

"Oh," Nathan saw the storm and ran inside also, even bumping into Tigress, causing the two to laugh "Heh, sorry," Nathan laughed awkwardly.

The rest of the day went by with loud screaming from Ox and Croc, scolding Colin for abandoning the Jade Palace and the others, nearly getting captured by Myrkor and jeopardizing the balance of the world. Colin certainly wasn't a slouch, yelling that it was no one's business what he does, that he could take care of himself, Myrkor getting lucky, the works. From the sound of females shouting as well, it seemed that Tigress and the Soothsayer were trying and failing to break up the argument. All the while a thunderstorm had picked up.

When night finally arrived, the argument had finally died off. Nathan was looking out the window at the falling rain when a knock came on his door. Nathan went to the door and saw Colin. "Oh, hey Colin," Nathan was surprised he came.

"Hey dude, mind if I come in?" Colin asked. Nathan nodded and the two sat down, looking outside at the storm.

"So how'd you're training go?" Colin asked Nathan.

"Oh, it went fine, learned how to actually fight…"

"You ran off crying, didn't you?"

"What?"

"Oh come on, it's too coincidental that you and Tigress were there when I was attacked," Colin laughed. "Besides, I can still see the tear stains".

"It was coincidence and coincidence only" Nathan said. "How'd your training go?"

"You know me..."

"You gave up, didn't you?"

"-!"

"Tigress said the cave was a last resort in case Shifu ran out of ideas," Nathan said. "Considering that you're here, I'd say he sent you there and it ended in an epic fail".

Colin had the nerve to argue but chose not to. Considering they were actually talking instead of fighting, he let it slide. Instead he chuckled and nodded. After a moment of silence Colin spoke again.

"Hey Nathan, how do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Just...how do you be so...you...how do you just roll with everything?" Colin finally found the right words.

Before Nathan could say anything, the door opened again and Tigress and the Soothsayer came in with the last person they were honestly expecting: Wolf Boss.

"What… how the hell did you survive?" Nathan asked.

"Oh, come on now," Wolf Boss laughed. "Shen couldn't kill me when he tried. What makes you think I was going to let a stinking cult do me in?"

"Yeah well, it's not really important how our friend survived," the Soothsayer said. "The masters and I were trying to discover what the poison in the darts that knocked you out came from. They weren't able to find any clear markings on it, and nothing I know of can tell me where it came from. That is why we've come up here. Did you happen to see the identity of your attackers?"

"Only their feet," Colin said. "Not enough for a positive I.D.".

"Well this is just great," Tigress groaned. "Not only do we have no idea where the cult is, but the only clues we have are these darts".

With that, Tigress pulled one of the darts out of her pocket and held it out in the open. When he saw it, Wolf Boss' eyes bulged out in surprise.

"That is the dart of the Mamunia shaman," he said.

He, Tigress, and the Soothsayer immediately began a rather hushed conversation between the three of them. Colin and Nathan just stared at each other, both sharing similar expression of confusion as to what was going on.

"The whatey-whatan?" Nathan asked.

"Mamunia is a nomadic tribe about an hour northeast of the city," Tigress explained. "The Mamunia shaman, or medicine man, has openly protested against your presence here".

Nathan let out a slightly audible gasp when this information came out. Apparently he didn't like the thought of people having a problem with him being somewhere. Colin, although initially just as surprised as Nathan was, quickly fell back into the usual scowl he was known to have.

"Has he now?" he asked in mock surprise.

**Heh, heh, heh… gotta love those inside jokes**

**R&R plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	15. Mamunia

**What up, Peoplezez**

**New chapter, Same craziness**

**Enjoy**

Nathan, Colin, and Wolf Boss, who's real happened to be Dende for some rather bizarre reason, had been staking out Mamunia from a brush that was conveniently right outside the village for the better part of four days. Lorelei had come with them due to the fact that she was the only one out of all the people they knew that could fluently speak the language. However, none of them wanted to risk going in because the villagers were rather savage and pretty much attacked anyone pretty much at random, even if they were part of the tribe. Not only that, but their supplies were running dangerously low, which meant they couldn't stay for much longer either way.

On the fourth night they were there, Mamunia was in the middle of some strange tribal ceremony. This provided the group with an ample chance to sneak into the village and check if Myrkor was anywhere in there.

"Myrkor has to be in one of those tents," Dende said. "There's no other place those darts could have come from".

"Now the only question how to get inside," Nathan said. "You have any ideas, Colin?"

"Why the hell are you asking me?" Colin snapped. "You're the ones who want to waltz into a village full of headhunters who will probably kill us without a second thought just to find a cult who we know wants to kill us".

"Hey, you're the one who wanted to go through with this in the first place," Nathan said.

"Because I wanted revenge on whoever tagged me with those darts," Colin hissed.

"Will you guys shut up," Lorelei snapped. "We have a job to do".

With a groan, Colin turned his attention back toward the village. The first thing he noticed was that the occupants were largely made up of wolves and snow leopards. He then saw a matching pair of tribal masks hanging from a pole in the back of one of the huts near where they were standing.

"'Wunderbar' he exclaimed with great relish," he smiled.

Before the others could say anything else, Colin slinked out from under the bush, made his way over to where the masks were hanging, grabbed them, and made his way back to the bush without so much as attracting attention to himself.

"Are you insane?" Nathan hissed. "There's no way I'm going to let you harm yourself. I'll do it because I can control myself, but I won't let you go in there".

"I'm not going in… he is." Colin smiled, pointing right at Dende.

"Wait-what?" Dende gawked.

Before Dende could say anything else, Colin had already wrapped the masks around his and Nathan's heads and had shoved them into the village. With nothing else to do, they were forced to do their best, and possibly worst, imitation of the tribe dance while occasionally checking the huts to see if anyone was inside. Colin couldn't help snickering about this before noticing he had fallen under the glare of Lorelei.

"Why did you just dump them in there like that?" she snapped. "What possible motivation could you have that would make you risk your friend's lives like that?"

Without saying a word, Colin turned Lorelei's head toward the village.

"Oh, good point," Lorelei said. "Well, why couldn't you and Nathan have just gone back to your own reality? You already have the remote fixed, so there's no reason you two should stay here".

Colin turned Lorelei's head back toward him, giving her a rather nasty glare in the process.

"Oh, good point," Lorelei said.

The little conversation was enough time for them to lose sight of Nathan and Dende. Colin and Lorelei looked through the entire crowd but couldn't find them anywhere. They had just figured they went to another part of the village when they suddenly heard shouting erupt in the far corner of the village where it looked like a large bonfire was burning. The crowd immediately moved to the other side of the village.

"What's going on?" Lorelei asked.

"Ekki fara!" a voice said right behind them.

Tilting their necks back, Colin and Lorelei saw several Mamunia tribesmen pointing spears right at their backs. It wasn't hard to tell what that shouting was about after that.

"Oh crud," Colin muttered.

"Fá að flytja!" one of the tribesmen demanded.

Colin and Lorelei sighed and walked over to where the bonfire was. Nathan and Dende were already captured, and it was not hard to see why. Apparently Dende, in an act of pure stupidity, took off his mask, thereby exposing them to the tribe. After a while, Colin and Lorelei were forced into the center with them, completely surrounded by angry tribe members.

"Well, they caught us… no sweat," Dende said.

Nathan turned toward Dende, a sour look on his face.

"Don't beat yourself up now," he sarcastically hissed.

At that point, a black wolf stepped out of the crowd and faced the group. Considering all the markings and skulls he had on his body, this guy had to be the tribe shaman. He let out a primal shriek that startled Nathan, Dende, and Lorelei. Colin, however, didn't even so much as flinch.

"You know… gingivitis is the number one cause of all tooth decay, dude," he jibed.

The others just stared at him, dumbstruck at what he just said. They all knew that Colin had to be the most self-serving person they knew, but even they didn't think he had the cajones to say something like that.

"Hvítt djöfulinn!" the shaman yelled, earning a yell from the crowd.

"Uh," Colin said before turning to Lorelei, "what does hvítt djöfulinn mean?"

"White devil," Lorelei translated.

"Well tell them I'm not," Colin hissed.

"I just met you," Lorelei said. "I don't know your".

"Hvítt djöfulinn, Hvítt djöfulinn!" the shaman yelled, getting another yell from the crowd.

"He said-"

"Lemme guess, 'white devil, white devil'?"

"Wow… you can speak their language?" Nathan asked.

"Ugh… just translate," Colin groaned.

He walked up as close to the shaman as he possibly could. Once he was at a comfortable distance, he put the tips of his wing feathers together as if he was praying.

"I come in peace." he said very slowly.

"Hvítt djöfulinn segir: Ég mun skaða þig".

This caused a bit of tension inside the tribe. Colin, after a bit of a pause, turned his attention to Lorelei again.

"Okay… I couldn't help but notice that hvítt djöfulinn part," he said. "Did you just refer to me as white devil?"

"That is how they know you," Lorelei said.

"Leave that part out from now on!" Colin hissed before turning his attention back to the shaman. "We represent Kung-fu".

"Ég vil tortíma Kung-Fu".

There was a rather off amount of murmuring making its way through the tribe. Apparently Lorelei was twisting everything he said, so Colin tried another tactic.

"War… is hell," he casually said. "The last thing we want… is a fight".

"Ég hef komist að berjast þig ... Svo fara til helvítis".

This seemed to have done the trick as there was now cheering echoing from the whole tribe. Then, a rather stout snow leopard made his way through the crowd. He didn't have the skulls on him like the shaman, but the markings were enough of an indication that he was of some importance".

"Ef þú stjórna einhvern veginn að standast próf okkar, munum við ekki spatter þú og vinir hugaður þína allt heilagt land okkar".

"The chief says that if you pass all of Mamunia's tests, we will not die," Lorelei translated.

Everyone just stared at Colin while he contemplated what he heard. They all knew he had a twofold decision to make. On one hand was him having to go through some tests in order to keep them from getting crushed. On the other hand was plowing through the tribe and creating one more problem they'd have to deal with. Finally, after a while, an odd smile formed across his face.

"Kooky".

**Well, it looks like Colin will have to kick butt and take names in order to get out of this**

**R&R, plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	16. Trial and Laughter

**What up peoplezez**

**New chapter, Same Craziness**

**Enjoy**

Colin was standing across from a tough looking snow wolf across a bed of coals, a thoroughly annoyed look spreading on his face. Nathan, Dende, Lorelei, and the rest of the tribe were all sitting in a circle around them. The chief had forced Colin to wear a robe they had because, according to Lorelei, they didn't trust him to not take any advantages with Shen's weapons. This made Colin extremely uncomfortable, and with that fact that he had Shen's apparently burned feet that didn't make him any happier.

"Þetta er Mamunia hring eldi," the chief said. "Þú verður að fara yfir hraðar en andstæðingurinn."

"The chief said you have to cross that coal faster than him," Lorelei said.

The wolf walked forward and began making his way across the coal, clearly wincing after each step he took. After several minutes, he jumped off at the other side, earning a great deal of applause from his fellow tribesmen. When the chief signaled Colin to go, he surprisingly called Nathan over.

"I need your help," Colin whispered.

"Sure, what do you-?"

Before he could even finish his question, Colin shoved Nathan right on top of the coal. The peacock then used his prone body to cross the coal without even touching it, earning a lot of muttering from the tribe.

"What?" Colin snapped. "You never told me how to handle it".

Obviously upset that their trial didn't work, the chief and shaman practically frog marched him to a strange cave, the others following right at their heels. There were several words written above the entrance in Mamunia's language, none of which gave Colin the sense that he could outsmart them this time.

"Þetta er slóð af Doom" the chief said. "Þú þarft að komast í gegnum þessa leið í eitt stykki til að standast slóð".

"The Trail of Doom," Lorelei translated.

Colin let out an audible gulp as he watched several of the tribesmen open the door. He didn't need to hear the rest of Lorelei's translation to know that this was probably not going to end well. Hesitantly, he edged his way into the cave, stopping just inside the entrance to see if his friends had a way out of this. When it was clear that they couldn't come up with anything, he stepped inside as the tribesmen closed the door behind him, sealing off to keep anyone else from helping him.

"Now we wait for him on the other side of the trail," Dende said.

"And alert the paramedics," Nathan gulped.

_Several hours later…_

Nathan was starting to feel sick to his stomach by the time the sun had risen. He, his friends, the chief, and the shaman had been waiting for hours for Colin to get out of the Trail of Doom for hours but so far they haven't heard anything that sounded like him. The chief and the shaman were both grinning to each other, and that did not make the snow leopard feel any better. He didn't want to think what he would have to tell the other masters if he brought Colin's shish kabobed body back to them.

Suddenly, the doors to the trail opened up to reveal Colin, completely uninjured and with a look of absolute smugness on his face. The others were stunned that he seemed to have found a way to get through in one piece.

"You didn't really think your dumb cave was going to do me in did you?" Colin mockingly asked.

Furious, the chief and the shaman began marching back to the village. Dende and Lorelei looked at each other and decided to get in between them in case they decided to come back and throttle him. Nathan meanwhile ran up to Colin.

"That was incredible," he gawked. "How'd you manage to get out of there in one piece?"

"Simple: they started me at the exit," Colin said. "Luckily for me, the off button for the booby traps was right there".

Nathan's face went from stunned disbelief to annoyed indifference. Of course they started him at the exit. Why else would Colin have made it through there as easily as he did? Now Nathan was hoping Mamunia wouldn't try use this to make the rest of the challenges that much harder for him.

Trial after trial, the chief and shaman through at Colin, and trail after trial, he got through them in the most obvious way possible. When he got through each trial, the peacock seemed to get more overconfident as the day went on. However, his confidence seemed to wilt a bit when he was thrown into a circle of small rocks.

"Uh, Lorelei… what is this supposed to be?" Colin asked.

"The Mamunia circle of death," Lorelei said. "Apparently you have to fight their strongest warrior".

Colin blanched as soon as he heard those words. He was then further demoralized when a large wolf from the tribe began making his way toward the circle. Colin hesitantly went into a defensive stance and waited for the wolf to make a move. He had a gut feeling that this guy was a lot stronger than he was, and that only seemed to make it harder to think of a way to get out of this trial alive.

Surprisingly, instead of making his way into the makeshift arena, the wolf turned his back to him. It was only then that Colin and the others noticed that the wolf was carrying another tribesman, a snow leopard by the looks of him, in a satchel on his back. The wolf careful set the snow leopard down but seemed a bit apprehensive about releasing him. As others watched, the wolf slowly edged over toward his friend and unclipped the latch that kept him restrained. With a flourished he jumped right out and Colin couldn't help but gawk at what he saw.

The tribesman looked like Nathan, but seemed to be rather stunted in appearance. His fangs, fur, and claws seemed to be long overdue for a good cleaning. In fact, there didn't really seem to be anything about him that made him a match for Colin. Not only did he lower his defenses, but he looked right at the chief as if this were some kind of a joke.

"This is it?" Colin gawked. "I have to beat… him?"

When the chief nodded, Colin let out a simpering laugh. He then began circling the tribesman, who followed him around, obviously not wanting to let him out of his sight. The others watch on in silence, hoping that Colin was taking this guy more seriously than he let on.

"I have no wish to go into it with you," Colin said. "Fighting people I know I can beat is not in my nature, but if you want it, you got it, sister!"

Colin threw a haymaker of a punch right at the tribesman's head. Surprisingly, instead of blocking it or getting out of the way, he caught the punch right in his mouth. The peacock whimpered for a few seconds before pulling his feathered fist out of his mouth and glaring right at him.

"Biting I see," Colin hissed. "I was not aware that Mamunia were biters. Well why don't you try this on and see how it fits?"

With a snap of his beak, Colin charged at the tribesman in an attempt to bite him. However, the tribesman simply threw him over his shoulder, making him land right in front of Lorelei, who seemed to have a problem with Colin and his attitude that was only mirrored by Colin not dropping the way she went around with the whole 'white devil' thing.

"Colin, he's a much better fighter than you," she said.

"Doi!" Colin hissed.

Before either of them could continue bickering, the tribesman dragged him back to the center of the makeshift ring. He then began doing something to Colin before turning around in a flourish.

"Aha… hvítt djöfulinn," he cried.

After getting applause from the tribe, the tribesman turned around to see Colin already up and glaring at him. The feathers on the top of his head were bent to look like horns, and given the name calling he received since he got there it wasn't hard to see what he was mad about.

"Okay, this white devil thing has gone on long enough!" he snapped. "No one… messes… with the do!"

Colin then pounced on the tribesman and began viciously attacking him. Everyone was shocked at how quickly the peacock seemed to get angry, in particular Nathan. Tigress had told him just how furious Colin got when the cult made fun of his past, but even he didn't think he got that angry. This made him worried that this would get them into even more trouble than they were already in.

Eventually, Colin began calming down. The others slowly edged toward him, unwilling to do anything that would provoke him. Over his shoulder they saw the unconscious form of the tribesman slumped on the ground, but worrying whether he was okay was the least of their worries.

"Are you okay, Colin?" Dende asked.

"I think so," Colin said. "I don't know what came over me".

"I'd say about two gallons of anger fueled rage there, Medusa," Lorelei smirked.

"Oh, very funny," Colin retorted.

Unfortunately, they had no more time to worry about the stability of Colin's mood. The chief had just shouted something and soon enough they were once again surrounded by the entire tribe.

"Uh… what did he just say?" Nathan asked.

"He said they're gonna kill us now," Lorelei said.

The others gasped when she said this. The chief grabbed a spear and aimed it straight at Dende. Nathan, who was the closest one to him, attempted to kick it out of the way. Unfortunately, he overshot it and the blade dug right into Nathan's knee.

A high pitched scream escaped Nathan's mouth as rolled around clutching his knee. Colin couldn't control himself and began laughing at his friend's predicament. He wasn't the only one, as soon everyone watching was soon shrieking in hysterics. Even Lorelei seemed to have a problem controlling herself.

"Setja þetta spjót ... í öðrum hné vinar þíns!" the chief yelled, throwing Colin another spear.

Not needing to have Lorelei translate to know was he said, Colin took the spear and drove it into Nathan's other knee. This got him screaming even louder and caused him to gesture to each spear in increasingly amusing ways.

"It's in the bone… it's in the bone… it's in the bone!" Nathan whined before collapsing on his back.

This got the biggest laugh out of the crowd yet. The tribesman Colin beat up, who seemed to have woken up from all the commotion, stepped forward and pulled both spears right out, getting a raucous cheer as Dende and several tribesmen helped Nathan up

"Sem er fyndið ... hann minnir mig á Sissy stúlku," the chief wheezed.

"The chief said you make him laugh… you're like sissy girl," Lorelei cackled.

Nathan, obviously not liking what he heard, tried to attack Lorelei but there were too many people in the way. He was then dragged off to them main tent, the others laughing in pursuit.

**Well, if you can't beat them, show off**

**R&R plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	17. Where They At?

**What up peoplezez**

**New chapter, Same craziness**

**Enjoy**

Nathan was seriously asking himself how he could have gotten himself into this mess. Not only was he not able to walk on his own weight after that stint with the spears, but he had been humiliated by Colin twice in the span of twelve hours. The peacock, who had gotten his old robe back, didn't seem to really mind as he was still basking in the effects of no longer being called white devil by Mamunia.

The four of them, Nathan having to put his arms around Dende and Lorelei just to even get anywhere, were standing in front of the trail that would take them back to Gongmen city. They had long since told the tribe about the whole fiasco with Myrkor and had been grudgingly forgiven by the shaman for trespassing on their land. However, the chief had stopped them before they had left.

"Vegna fyndið antics vinar þíns í gær, bæði af þú art nub bandsmen að ættkvísl," the chief said.

"The Mamunia chief says you're now a friend to the tribe," Lorelei translated.

"Hins vegar, ef tveir af þú hefur ekki skilið með þeim tíma Myrkor er ósigur, munum við taka næsta stein, brjóta skulls þín opin, og eyðileggja dýrmætur þinn Kung-Fu." The chief said his tone much coarser.

"However, if you've not left by the time this cult business is taken care of, then they will destroy Kung-Fu and smash your heads on a rock".

"Blunt," Nathan muttered through pain.

"Right… come on let's go, guys." Colin said.

Colin led the group down the trail away from the tribe. However, it was slow business moving because Nathan kept wincing every ten seconds or so.

"You all right, Nathan?" Colin asked.

"Shut up, Colin," Nathan snapped. "It's bad enough having you cripple me without you trying to rub it in right now. This is gonna take months to heal dude!"

"Well excuse me for trying to keep them from killing us-!"

FWIP

"Holy monkeys!" Colin exclaimed.

"Jesus H. Christ!" Nathan followed up.

The shaman, in the attempt at one more chance to get a laugh, had shot a dart at Nathan and Colin's exposed necks. Colin immediately plucked his out, smiled, the bolted down the trail, the others in hot pursuit, which was slowed down considerably because of Nathan's condition.

"Hurry up guys!" Colin called out to the three behind him.

"Shut up!" Dende and Nathan screamed.

* * *

><p>The four managed to make their way back to Gongmen Palace without any more incidents. They were greeted by Master Ox, Croc and Shifu and they were also scolded by the three. There was clear evidence of bruise marks amongst other markings on them. Most of the scolding was directed at Colin, considering he ran away and that he blew out Nathan's knees. Not to the other's surprise, Colin lashed back at them. Po and the five, excluding Tigress, were present but were obviously trying to avoid getting into the conflict. Dende carried Nathan to the infirmary while Lorelei once again skulked off to be on her own.<p>

"I swear, one of these days that kids gonna get hit for his running his beak for too long," Dende said as they suddenly heard a thud, alongside a squawk. The two couldn't help but laugh at the timing.

On their way up the long flight of stair, most of the time in which Nathan complained they needed an elevator, Nathan and Dende ran into Tigress. As they had pretty much predicted on the way up, she was well beyond shocked about what had happened to Nathan, going so far as to call Colin a few choice swear words before she could stop herself. She immediately made up for it by helping carry Nathan up to the infirmary, where the soothsayer was already waiting for him with a bowl that had some sort of red fluid in it, and then went back downstairs, obviously to give her two cents to Colin's face.

"So this stuff is gonna make my legs feel a bit better?" Nathan asked as he swirled the red contents of the bowl. The soothsayer nodded nearby. As he was about to drink Nathan caught sight of Dende staring at the two darts that had struck Colin's neck.

"What's up?" Nathan asked as he finally began drinking from the bowl, his eyes shooting wide open as a sudden rush of energy surged through his legs, causing him to stand up right, completely oblivious to any pain that would've been there.

"Something isn't right about these," Dende said eyeing the darts carefully, moving one and the other in and out of sight. "There's something definitely different about them, but I can't quite put my finger on it. However, I can tell that they were fired by two different groups of people".

"Myrkor?" Nathan asked.

"Who else?" Dende retorted.

The two turned their heads they heard the door open loudly and slam behind them. Turning around, they saw Colin storming in, surprisingly uninjured yet nonetheless in one of his now usual foul moods.

"Damn those stupid masters, wish I could just leave this stupid place." Colin muttered, heading to the other end of the room. Suddenly, to the obvious shock of the others, Nathan spoke up.

"Wait a shotgun cocking second, Colin if we're both here and the remote works, why don't we leave right now?" Nathan asked.

"It's called 'payback' Nathan," Colin snapped. "If you weren't such a freakin' wuss bag all the time, you'd probably know about it by now. There's no way I'm going to leave this world until I jolly stomp that stupid cult to kingdom come. Now stop action like an idiot and tell me where they're hiding".

"This… might be a good time for me to leave," the soothsayer said.

"We don't know where they are." Dende said as the soothsayer left. "All we really have to go on are these darts any they don't even have anything even remotely distinctive about them".

Colin yanked the darts out of Dende's grip and held them up to his face. After a few seconds, he had the same look of bored indifference Nathan had when he had weaseled his way out of the Trial of Doom.

"Of… course," he muttered.

"Wait a minute, how could you have figured out where Myrkor's hiding when I couldn't even figure it out?" Dende asked.

"It's quite simple when you actually think." Colin laughed, holding up the dart the shaman shot at him. "What do you suppose this is?"

"The dart from the Mamunia shaman," Dende said.

"Exactly… and when compared to the ones that tagged me earlier?" Colin asked, holding up the other dart.

"The same," Nathan said.

"Only to the untrained eye," Colin said. "You see this dart," he motioned the one from the shaman, "was made out of wood from the mimosa tree, while this one," he motioned the other one, "contains wood from a red, fungus bearing acalla, and there is only one area in the forest with red, fungus bearing acallas".

"And where would that be exactly?" Dende asked.

"There's a cave overlooking the forest about a day and a half north of here," Colin explained. "There were a series of tunnels that led deeper, but I didn't even bother to thoroughly check. There's a good chance that's where Myrkor is hiding out right now".

Nathan and Dende were absolutely stunned by this. They had been sure that Colin, who for the obvious reason didn't care about every single detail, would likely remember where he was when he left Shifu. Yet there he was perfectly recalling where he was and making it sound legit. It was only when Colin snapped his wing feathers in front of Dende's face did they snap out of their little trance.

"As I was saying, Dende, I need you to go down to the others," Colin said. "Tell them that for their own good, they'd better stay out of this. Nathan you and I had better start packing again. This is going to get messy and I don't want to forget anything before we left".

Dende, obviously confused by what he had just said, left the infirmary and headed downstairs. Nathan, who had long since come to expect Colin's increasingly bizarre orders, immediately followed him upstairs to prepare for their next little trip.

"How were you able to guess where Myrkor was hiding so quickly Colin?" Nathan asked.

"If you've been on the outside looking in for as long as I have, you'd notice things a lot quicker," Colin said. "Besides, I… think I might have slept in that cave when Shifu left me high and dry".

"And this is why Myrkor tagged you in the first place?" Nathan asked.

"Yeah, pretty much," Colin said. "Just don't tell Shifu I said this. Somehow I doubt I'll ever hear the end of it if he found out".

"Don't worry, Colin," Nathan said. "I won't tell the guy. Speaking of Shifu though, are you sure the other will really stay out of the way?"

"Knowing those guys, I'm almost certain… that they'll do the exact opposite of what I just asked them to do," Colin said.

**Well, now that they know where Myrkor is hiding, that makes things that much more interesting**

**Oh, and for those of you who don't have an account on here, I've opened up anonymous reviews… again. This time actually try to review guys… sheesh.**

**R&R plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	18. So Much for Safety

**What up peoplezez**

**New chapter, Same craziness**

**Enjoy**

Days had passed without any source of interest. Primarily, the only thing that was even remotely entertaining was when the masters were plotting on tactics on how to keep Myrkor away from Colin and Nathan while they dealt with Colin's schemes of revenge. While Nathan trusted their wisdom in decision making, Colin always objected to their ideas. Leading to Nathan, Tigress, Dende and Lorelei had to listen to Colin's ramblings for most of the time, most of which ending in amusement for the four when they heard the squawk of Colin signaling that the others got hurt for his words.

Nathan had been sitting with Tigress simply talking about the other dimension. Despite her usual hardcore exterior, Nathan had found that Tigress seemed to enjoy the little things in life, the most common of which was being about to talk to her friends. This proved rather eventful because, as he and Colin had always assumed, everyone in this world was completely ignorant about what their universe was like and were constantly asking them their world.

"So you're saying people pair me up with Po in these…what did you call them again?" Tigress asked after hearing the end of one of Nathan's stories.

"They're called fan fiction stories and yes, they also tend to pair you up with Tai Lung sometimes," Nathan said.

Immediately, Tigress started blushing in an obvious way. Nathan just stared for a few moments before realizing that for the moment he was technically Tai Lung and began to blush as well. Tigress smiled at his realization, making Nathan forget about his embarrassment.

SLAM

The two were interrupted from Colin barging into the room, a big welt on his head and his usual scowl across his face. Tigress stood up with an annoyed look on her face.

"Well I'll be on my way, bye Nathan." Tigress walked out of the room, shoving back Colin and earning a few harsh words in the process.

"I swear those idiots don't know what they're doing," Colin raged.

"What's your issue now Colin?" Nathan teased, ducking as Colin chucked a wooden block at him that he found in the room.

"They think they can just keep us held up here, but I won't have it," Colin said. "I'm not just going to sit around and wait for some stupid cult to find me when I know I can take the fight to them-"

"Colin, staying here is our safest bet," Nathan argued. "If we were out there then Myrkor could get to us quicker than you could say the sweet taste of India, and that's something we can't do, no matter how many times they've wronged us".

"Oh will you stop being such a freaking wuss all the time?" Colin snapped. "This is why I'm the only one who has even tried to think up ideas between the two of us. You're the type of guy who tries to prioritize everyone else's problems ahead of your own. You always try to make everything except you matter-".

FWOOSH

Unfortunately, Colin was unable finish his little rant as all the torches that were lighting the room were snuffed out at the same time.

"What the he-ah!" Colin began before being silenced.

"Colin? Where- Gah!" Nathan followed.

* * *

><p>"… wake up you idiot!" a voice rang through Nathan's dully conscious mind.<p>

"Hit him in the nuts, dude," another voice said. "That's what I always do when I want to get his attention".

"No wait I'm up, I'm-"

All at once, a sharp pain erupted right between Nathan's legs, making him completely snap out of the dizziness he was in. However, he seemed to be strapped down in one of the thrones the cult had used when they tried to get Shen and Tai-Lung's souls back into their bodies and was therefore unable massage the pain. Luckily he was still able to see two lizards leave the slightly darkened room they were in.

"Well, it looks like Sleeping Beauty finally woke up," a familiar sarcastic voice said. "I suppose you aren't in a good mood after being sucker punched in the knads like that".

Looking over to his left, Nathan saw Colin had been fastened to the other throne. As usual, he had a scowl across his face. However, the pain from the attack seemed to retch when he turned toward him, making him double over.

"How many times… can you get hit in the nuts…before you can't have kids!?" Nathan groaned.

"Oh, stop whining, Nathan," Colin said. "We have bigger things to worry about right now. In case you haven't noticed, you little 'stay-at-the-tower' plan didn't work out so well because Myrkor caught us".

"But think about this Colin, if we had left then, they would've caught us even quicker than the 'stay at the tower plan'," Nathan countered with a condescending smiled, leaving Colin to grumble to himself.

Just as he said that, the remaining torches that hadn't been lit yet lit up, revealing that they were on top of some sort of dais in some sort of cathedral like chamber. Huge granite obelisks overlooked the area as the robed members of Myrkor began appearing out of the shadows and began circling the two while the moon stared down at the from a hole in the ceiling. On top of a balcony that stood out over the place was the snake that they had first seen when they met the cult.

"Colin... Nathan... it'sss ssso good to sssee you both again," he said. "I trussst you both have been keeping well sssince the lassst time we were in each othersss company".

"We're a lot better than what you're going to be when we get up there, you spastic serpent!" Colin yelled.

"Ssspare usss the threatsss, kid," the snake said. "In cassse you haven't noticed by now, we've got you tied up exactly where we want you to be. In a few momentsss, we'll finally finisssh that ceremony your Furiousss five interrupted back at the village".

"Oh yeah, well then explain to us how you plan on doing that," Nathan challenged. "I doubt the others are dumb enough to just let us die like this".

"Oh, don't worry about your little alliesss, my misssplaced friend," the snake said. "The parametersss of thisss chamber make it extremely impossible for anyone to sssneak up on usss like lassst time".

"Oh yeah, well they're still going to stop you," Nathan said.

"Yeah well I'd like to sssee that happen," the snake said. "Now, I believe it'sss your ssso called human tradition to allow captivesss to get anything they want before they die. Ssso tell me, do you have a lassst requessstsss?"

"Oh gee, let's see? How about... get me the hell out of this chair before I break out of these restrains and kick your faces in! How's that for last requests?" Colin yelled, only to receive a fierce kick to the gut, making his eyes bulge at the immense pain and cough at the lack of air.

Suddenly a komodo dragon ran up to where the snake was. He then bent toward him and whispered something. The snake whispered something back and the Komodo dragon ran off.

"Well, I ssshould have expected that from your friendsss," the snake said. "It would ssseem that they were anticipating the two of you being captured and had tagged usss when we were trying to ssspirit away with you two. But they will never be able to get here in time to ssstop us from bringing our Massstersss back into thisss world," the snake slithered back to the others in cult in order to make final preparations.

"Got any bright ideas Nate?" Colin asked to see Nathan looking ahead annoyed. "Dude?"

"We could've left, you know," Nathan said. "We could've left the instant you fixed the damn remote and look where we are now. You just had to stay and try to take out the stupid cult, and for what? Simply because you don't want to leave without paying them back for attacking you in the forest?"

"I will not be made the enemy here, Nathan," Colin snapped. "I told you why we couldn't leave".

"Your pride, I know but this was never your fight to begin with. And thanks to your stupid pride, we're going to die, Shen and Tai Lung will be revived and all our friends-'

"All your friends," Colin quickly interjected. Nathan looked at him extremely annoyed.

"…All of them, are going to die and this universe will be screwed royally, all thanks to you," Nathan finished as the snakes encircled them, chanting.

"Ta uverdig sjeler. Gi oss den sterke".

In an instant, the winds began to pick up and black clouds began swirling in the sky, signaling that the spirits of Tai-Lung and Shen we're about to appear moments later. However, this did nothing to deter the anger the two were feeling for each other.

"Oh, so now I'm the bad guy, huh?" Colin laughed. "Well correct me if I'm wrong about this but it was you breaking the remote that got us into this mess! If you hadn't grabbed the thing before I could repair it, none of this would be happening!"

"Oh spare me the guilt trip, Colin," Nathan retorted. "I wouldn't expect a guy who can't even stand up to his parents to care about the consequences of what he's done".

"What'd you just say?" Colin snapped as the Spirits of Tai-Lung and Shen appeared in the sky.

"You heard me," Nathan growled. "I know all about your past, Colin. At first, I was planning on apologizing for all the stuff I'd said to you, but now I see that there's no reason to apologize to a guy who only cares about himself. Well I hope you're proud of yourself for what you caused-ah!"

A blood red light enveloped both of them when Tai-Lung and Shen made contact with their respective bodies. At once, an intense sensation of being dipped into molten lead began spreading across their bodies. Colin and Nathan tried their best to fight off the ghosts, but they were still too weak from being kidnapped to put up much of a fight. Just before passing out, they could barely make out someone yelling their names.

**Well it looks like Myrkor finally got their wish. What will happen now will certainly be anyone's guess**

**R&R plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	19. The Past is Prelude

**What up peoplezez**

**Sorry it took so long to get the next chapter in. With finals, various projects, and Christmas coming, I've been pretty much stretched out at the moment.**

**Enjoy**

"Nathan? Come on you idiot. I don't have all day to just stand here".

Colin and the others, aside from Tigress, were attempting to wake Nathan up but to no avail. He was still out cold from the effects of the ritual and was not responding to anything they tried. Eventually Colin got tired of what they were doing, formed a fist, and brought it down toward Nathan's lower area only to be blocked by Nathan grabbing his fist.

"I'm up...Colin?" Nathan began before suddenly realizing that Colin was a human. Nathan noticed the hand that grabbed Colin was also a human hand.

"What the- we're human again?" Nathan asked as he spotted the masters, a look of worry on their faces.

"Myrkor did it, they revived Tai Lung and Shen," Colin explained.

Nathan let out a sarcastic snort at Colin's remark. He then tried to stand up but he ended up letting out a cry of pain as his leg gave out from underneath him.

"Yeah, I wouldn't try standing up for a while if I were you," Crane said.

Looking down, Nathan saw bandages wrapped just under his right knee. There were also several scattered bandages on his body. It took his mind a while to register the fact that they had to have been smacked around a bit when their real bodies had been ejected from the ones they had inhabited since they got there. Colin seemed to have gotten the worst of it. His left arm was wrapped in a sling and there was some serious swelling on his face, but otherwise he was all right.

"When we got to the Myrkor base, the ritual was already complete and Myrkor was nowhere to be found," Viper spoke up. "We found you unconscious by the altars and managed to get you back here in time. I'm not sure how long you would have managed if we didn't get there in time".

"Oh... it was that bad huh?" Nathan asked.

"It was," Colin said. "Plus, Tigress seems to have taken it pretty worse than these guys put together. From what they told me, that was the first time they ever saw her crying".

Nathan let out a small chuckle at that last comment. He then dragged his body over to a nearby table and used the chair in order to keep his weight off his bad leg.

"So, what's going on in the real world?" Nathan asked.

"Not much," Dende said. "I have the Wolf pack skowering the area for Myrkor but at this point they've pretty much vanished off the face of the earth. We have no clue where they're going to show up next".

At that precise moment, another wolf came into the room, followed immediately by Tigress. It wasn't hard to see that she was visibly still upset about nearly losing the two of them. There were visible tear stains running down her face and, although she was visibly glad that they were alive, was determinedly avoiding everyone's gaze. The wolf, meanwhile, went up to Shifu and started whispering something to him. Shifu immediately nodded and dismissed the wolf.

"Well, you'll be pleased to know that the wolf pack has finally managed to locate Myrkor as well as Tai Lung and Shen," the old master said.

"Really?" a now interested Colin said while taking off the sling on his arm. "Where?"

"Oh no… I think you've done enough for one disaster," Ox interrupted. "You and Nathan are staying here until we sort this mess out".

"Oh yeah, like that plan hasn't fallen through the cracks already," Colin laughed. "Now get out of my way so I can go kick some heads in".

"No," Shifu said, stepping in front of the guy. "You've done enough damage to this world already. I'm not going to just stand back and let you destroy it even more. Tigress and Lorelei have already agreed to keep an eye on you while we handle this crisis, so if we catch you following us, we'll pause long enough to knock some sense into you".

With that, Shifu, Ox, Croc, and the others that were going to stop the cult left the room. Croc was the last one to leave, and he paused just long enough to take one last fleeting look at Colin before closing the door behind him. Nathan stared at the back of Colin's head for a while before slapping some life back into his bad knee and hobbling over to Tigress.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"I'm fine," Tigress muttered.

"Are you sure?" Nathan asked. "You look really shaken up from where I'm standing".

"I'm fine," Tigress repeated.

"Okay," Nathan said. "Just know that if you need anyone to talk to, I'm…!"

Before he could even finish his sentence, Tigress had caught him in a tight hug. Lorelei's jaw literally dropped when she saw this while Colin was still looking at the closed door and was unaware of what was going on.

"I'm not fine alright, I was worried, worried about you." Tigress said in a cracked voice, clearly not used to expressing her feelings. "You're the only one around here I felt safe talking to. And when I saw you lying there on the ground, I got scared. I thought that you were gone forever. There was something different about you when I first saw you but I didn't think anything about it at first. But… but…"

Tigress couldn't even finish her own sentence as she threw herself around Nathan again. Stunned at Tigress coming clean like this, Nathan slowly wrapped his arms around her, letting her stay there as long as she needed.

"Thank you." Tigress concluded her scene by unwrapping her arms from Nathan. The two of them looked into each other's eyes, smiling. Lorelei interrupted them with a clearing of her throat.

"Well, that… scene… aside, is there anything you two want to do?" Lorelei asked. "Since the only thing we can do right now is wait for the others to come back, we at least have to find something to-!"

"Who the hell does he think he is?" Colin said out of nowhere.

The others literally jump at that last outburst. They had completely forgotten that he had been standing there the whole time. Yet they managed to regain their composure fast enough to stop Colin from exiting the room.

"Where do you think you're going?" Lorelei snapped. "You heard Master Shifu. He doesn't want you guys coming after them".

"Screw that," Colin said. "This Myrkor thing has gotten way too personal for me to just sit back and let someone else take care of them".

Colin quickly brushed Lorelei aside and made his way toward the door. Just as he reached for the handle, however, someone grabbed him and threw him to the floor. Colin quickly got up and expected Tigress to be glaring at him, but instead was mildly surprised to see Nathan staring right at him.

"What is your problem, Colin," he snapped. "Why can't you just let this thing go? Sooner or later your ego is going to drag us into trouble where even you won't be able to get us out".

"Maybe you haven't noticed Nathan, but they just tried to kill us," Colin retorted. "That is not something you just lie down and take. I don't know what you would call the suitable action for this, but I am not going to just sit around and wait for something to happen".

"You're unbelievable," Nathan spat. "Ever since we've gotten here, all you've done was whine and complain about every single thing that has happened".

"Look who's talking," Colin said. "You've been doing the exact same thing as me, yet unlike you, I've actually tried to do something about it. You've got to be the most spineless person I've ever had the sorry misfortune to meet".

"Wow," Nathan said. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you're letting all the grief your parents gave you go to your head, Colin".

"Hey, you have no right to bring that up, Nathan," Colin snapped. "I don't know how you managed to find out about that, but you have no right to parrot it around like it's everyone's business. Now shut before you say something you'll regret".

Tigress and Lorelei just stood there staring dumbstruck at the both of them, the looks on their faces saying that this was the first time they heard any of this. However, Nathan didn't seem all that willing to ebb off from the attack so quickly.

"Well, it looks like I struck a nerve," Nathan said. "Tell me, did you get the police to arrest them for you or did you have someone else be the scapegoat for you?"

"Nathan this is your last warning!" Colin yelled. "Back off now and I won't turn you into a pancake!"

"Not until you tell us what exactly happened," Nathan challenged.

With a yell, Colin tackled Nathan to the ground and started throwing punches right at his face. Nathan quickly kicked him off, but that didn't stop Colin from charging him again and turning it into a Pier 6 brawl. Luckily, the commotion snapped Tigress and Lorelei out of the trance Colin's past caused and, after a struggle, managed to pry the both of them off each other.

"All right, fine, I'm the one who had the police arrest my parents, Nathan." Colin spat, a small trickle of blood flowing from his nose. "Seriously, what was I supposed to do? Just sit back and wait for my parents destroy my life before it can even start? That's not how it works Nathan. My parents may be guilty of a lot of things, but being quitters ain't one of them".

"Oh, and that gives you the right to dump your hang-ups on everyone else?" Nathan snapped. "I don't know what had happened to have warranted this behavior, but it's not my fault that you haven't been able to deal with it".

"Oh, yeah, just like it wasn't your fault with that friend of yours," Colin retorted.

"What did you say?" Nathan asked.

"You heard me," Colin said. "Croc told me all about that fight that lead that guy to be hospitalized, so don't try to make it seem that you're unanimously clean".

"Hey, you have no right to bring that into this," Nathan snapped. "Besides, that wasn't… my fault…"

Nathan stopped himself there and seemed to tense up from that last statement. Colin let out a smirk and just stared at him, obviously pleased that he'd gotten the argument back on his own terms. Tigress and Lorelei just stood there, unable to think of anything to say that could remedy the situation. After a while, Nathan let out a sigh.

"Ok, maybe it was my fault," he muttered.

The others just gawked at this. While it was true they knew that Nathan was a direct person when it came to talking, they honestly weren't expecting him to admit to something like this. Colin, after a few moments of gulping for air, managed to regain his composure.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Well you see... we had made a bet. What it was I can't exactly remember, but when he lost he yelled at me for unfair rules. So, I asked him why he didn't ask to change the rules before he agreed to them and…" Nathan sighed, "… I think you know the rest Colin. After some time, I kinda realized the rules were a little unfair".

"That's what you fought about?" Colin gawked. "That sounds a little weak".

"I know! I've been trying to apologize to the guy for years now, but he doesn't return my messages," Nathan said.

Colin just stood there, taking in everything he just heard with an extremely stunned look on his face. Up until now, everyone had assumed that Colin was the one that carried the grapefruits. He found it hard to believe that Nathan, who everyone had thought was the least violent guy they had ever known, had caused the problem that had ruined his life in the first place. What was even stranger was that, despite all the anger that he had caused since they got here, Colin couldn't help feeling a tiny bit of remorse toward Nathan. He walked over and clapped him on the back, earning a bit of a surprised snicker from Lorelei.

"Don't worry about it dude," he said. "From what you told me, the guy had it coming".

"I know, but I can't help it," Nathan sighed. "I just wish this whole nonsense never happened".

"Well, if that guy doesn't want to be anywhere near you, than that's his hang-up," Colin said. "You're a pretty cool guy to hang out with… despite the lapses in logic".

"Thanks Colin… I think," Nathan said. "Just get us back to our own reality and I promise I'll never bring up the whole parent thing again".

"Well… that's gonna take a lot longer than what you might like," Colin hesitantly grimaced.

"What do you mean?" Lorelei asked the first time since the argument broke out.

"The remote was in the robe I was wearing when Shen got his body back," Colin shrugged.

"What?" Nathan snapped. "Why would you let him have something like that?"

"Think about it Nathan," Colin said. "That remote has to be the most advanced piece of technology both in our world and this one. Did you honestly think I'd be careless enough to let something like that out of my sight?"

Nathan didn't bother saying anything because he knew Colin was right. The Multiverse remote was just too valuable a device for anyone to just leave out in the open like that.

"We have to go after them," Tigress said suddenly. "We can't let those two figure out how to use the remote".

"That's an excellent point, Tigress," Colin said. "Tai-Lung, Shen, and Myrkor on their own are bad enough. I don't even want to think about what would happen if they brought alternate versions of themselves here, or worse, find a way to slip into our universe".

With that, Colin and Tigress left the room and went down the stairs to the bottom of the tower. Nathan and Lorelei, after a moment of just staring after them, shrugged and followed suit.

"Looks like we're going to follow them after all," Lorelei laughed.

**Dang, this is getting personal**

**With Christmas just around the corner, I don't know how fast we'll be able to get the next chapter up. So until then, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Years, and… whatever you guys celebrate during this time of year**

**R&R plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	20. Six Feet Blunder

**What up, peoplezez**

**Ugh, you would not believe how much torture it was just to get this one in the books. I probably would have gotten it in faster if SOMEONE hadn't flaked out on me just as the story was coming to an end**

**Well, all obvious annoyances aside, I'm finally able to get the next chapter in**

**Enjoy**

"Ok, please tell me you at least know where we're going Tigress," Colin said.

"Colin, you've been asking that same question for the past hour," Tigress groaned. "Yes I know where we're going and if you ask that question one more time, it's your face".

The two of the, as well as Nathan and Lorelei, had been traveling through forest after forest for several days is search of this base Myrkor was supposedly at. However, this proved to be harder than what they originally thought it would be. The directions Tigress had found were so inexplicably erratic that it was becoming a problem figuring out whether or not they were going the right way. On top of that, Colin and Nathan's human bodies, it transpired, were having a hard time getting used to the terrain. This made it extremely difficult for them to keep moving for long periods of time without the two of them having to rest up.

"Colin has a point, Tigress," Lorelei said. "Somehow I can't help but feel like we're being taken for a ride here".

"Oh, so you agree with me now huh?" Colin laughed. "That's a first".

"Don't push it," Lorelei said. "Just because I'm helping you get your stupid remote back doesn't mean I think any better of you".

"Will you guys shut up?" Nathan snapped. "Seriously, it's bad enough having to get through this stupid jungle without you guys having another go at each other".

"Hey, how many times have you made things worse during this whole incident and haven't paid for it?" Colin retorted.

"Oh grow up, Colin," Tigress said. "This is no time to snipe at everyone within sight. You were the one who promised you'd try to be a little more open hearted, remember?"

"Well, excuse me for being the one who has to point out the obvious all the time," Colin snapped. "It's not my fault your directions are a total dud".

"Watch it, Colin," Tigress growled. "These directions are the only lead we have to finally get rid of Myrkor for good".

"Maybe you haven't noticed Tigress, but your directions have led us to the middle of nowhere," Colin said. "All we've done the last few days was go around in circles. We haven't even caught up with the others yet, much less find anything that even remotely resembles a place where Myrkor could be hiding. Face it Tigress, we're lost".

"No we aren't," Lorelei said.

Turning around, the others saw that Verity was looking at what, if by all indications, appeared to be some sort of hole leading underground not far from where they were. There was definitely an odd feel in the air as all four of them stared at the underground lair that was conveniently out of place from where you would normally see one. Then, three pairs of glaring eyes fell onto Colin.

"Oh, come on," he snapped. "Who, in their right mind, would expect to find a fortress in the middle of a freaking jungle?"

Not willing to provoke another one of Colin's now common rages, the others began making their way toward the hole. Colin, after some quick muttering about how thick these guys were, quickly followed. At first, it was easy enough getting through as there were hardly any cultists lurking around. But as they went deeper, they seemed to be everywhere they turned, forcing them to stick to the shadows on more than one occasion. On top of that, it felt like the place became creepier the deeper they went. With every hallway they turned down, it seemed more and more likely that some sort of ambush is coming their way.

"Ok, I know this isn't exactly my style in asking this but does this place seem creepy to anyone else?" Colin asked.

"Aww, is the big, tough human afraid of a little hole?" Lorelei chided.

"Shut up Lorelei," Colin snapped. "I'm not afraid of anything. I just have this feeling that we've dug ourselves in a little too deep here".

"Colin, this is no time to suddenly start getting second thoughts about doing this," Tigress said.

"I can't help it," Colin said. "I just have this feeling that this probably wasn't the right thing to do-"

"Shh!" Nathan hissed, holding up a hand.

"Don't you shush me!" Colin snapped.

"Will you shut up!" Nathan hissed. "I hear voices".

It was true. Several voices seemed to be echoing from the other side of the hallway they were standing in. Thinking quickly, Tigress pulled them into a nearby hallway to keep them out of sight as the voices got close enough so they could properly hear them.

"Oh man… what a nightmare that was last night," a calm voice said.

"You can say that again," a gruffer voice replied. "Twelve men. That's what it took to finally subdue that panda. I mean really, why on earth would a panda, who Master Shen had personally made sure there were none left, be the Dragon Warrior?"

"How should I know?" the calmer voice replied. "Of course, Shen did seem to be mildly upset when he saw that Lorelei and the human brats weren't there".

"Why should he care?" the gruffer voice snapped. "Master Shen already has a mental imprint of how to work that Multiverse Remote or whatever the high priest called it thanks to that Colin brat being in his body, so I don't understand the reason why he should be concerned about them not being here".

"Apparently, the Masters have big plans for them," the calmer voice said.

Slowly taking a look down the hallway, the group saw a gecko and a Komodo dragon talking. Fortunately they seemed to have stopped walking for the moment, giving them enough time to listen in without worrying about being seen.

"Hey Colin, isn't that the guy you beat up after he made that crack about you not standing up to you parents?" Tigress asked, pointing to the Komodo dragon.

"Yeah… I really don't like that guy," Colin muttered.

Nathan raised a hand, effectively silencing the two. With a sigh, they turned their attention back to the two cultists.

"Are you sure we'll be able to take control of China now that the Masters are back?" the Komodo dragon asked. "From what I hear, they haven't exactly been getting along too well since we brought them back".

"Who knows," the gecko said. "All I know is that revenge will be ours. Come on. We'd better get back to the shrine before either of them gets angry".

With that, the two cultists went down the hall, not bothering to look over their shoulders to see the only four people who were not part of the cult. Once they were down the hall and well out of earshot, they let out a collective sigh of relief.

"Dude, what a stroke of luck that is for us," Colin laughed. "Shen and Tai-Lung can't stand each other. It'll be a cinch taking them out now".

"Are you out of your mind?" Nathan gawked. "You heard what they said. Shen seems to know everything about you, and I highly doubt that Tai-Lung hasn't learned everything about me".

"That may be true but what choice do we have," Tigress said. "We can't just stand here and let them destroy everything. Plus we have to save Po and the others or who knows what'll happen to them".

"The sssame thing that'sss going to happen to you," an all too familiar voice replied.

Before any of them had time to react, they were pinned down by the high master and a group of cultists and were shackled up. Then, with even less surprised than they thought, the light clinking of Shen's metal-lined talons signaled his entry into the hallway.

"Well, well… it certainly looks like you're a lot bolder than I expected," Shen said. "Given the condition you're in, I would have thought you'd be smart enough to lay low until you had fully recovered".

"Cut the theatrics, you undercooked turkey," Nathan snapped. "What have you done with our friends?"

"And where the hell is my remote," Colin said.

"Oh, don't be so hard," Shen laughed. "Your friends are all right… for the moment. We're saving them for after our little ceremony tonight. As for your remote… well let's just say I'm going to be holding on to it for a little while".

Colin made a move to attack Shen, but the cultists were able to subdue him. After stifling a little snicker, Shen turned his attention toward Lorelei, who had not taken her eyes of the deranged peacock since he showed up.

"Ah, Lorelei," he said. "It's so wonderful to see you again".

"Yeah well it's not wonderful to see you," Lorelei snapped.

"Oh you were always so critical," Shen said. "Don't you remember the good times we had with each other?"

"Ay, before you tried to kill me," Lorelei spat.

"Well you shouldn't have tried to run away," Shen said. "If you would have just been loyal, we would have been-"

"Whoa, whoa, time out," Colin interrupted. "Let me see if I've got this straight. You know her. She knows you. But she hates my guts. And… everyone's cool with this? DID I MISS SOMETHING HERE!?"

"Well if you must know, he tried to get me to marry him but I managed to escape," Lorelei said.

"And you couldn't have told me this before you started being a complete jerk to me?" Colin snapped.

"Well I assumed you knew this," Lorelei said.

"Why would I know about your freaking marital problems?" Colin yelled.

"Enough of this," Shen said. "This little banter, amusing as it may be, has become a distraction for out much larger goal".

"Take the humansss down to the SSShadow Chambersss," the high master said. "The tiger and the peacock come with usss".

Before they could say anything, Colin and Nathan were forcefully dragged down the adjacent hallway. Tigress tried to stop them, but was unable to even get close enough and was dragged the opposite direction.

**Well, that certainly went well for the guys didn't it**

**Again, sorry for not getting this in sooner. I'll try to get the next chapter in as soon as possible**

**R&R plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	21. Facing Fear With Help From the Dead

**What up peoplezez**

**Several applications and a hell of a lotta headaches later, I've finally managed to find a legitimate co-author partner in Smile- ImTheEndOfAllThatYouSee. Hopefully we'll be able to make up for the lost time that Serenity in Virginia's (I guess suspension would be the proper term here) had caused**

**Revised disclaimer: I don't own Kung-Fu Panda or any ideas that come from ****Smile- ImTheEndOfAllThatYouSee; I do own my characters and Nathan originally came from Serenity in Virginia**

**Enjoy**

After a few minutes of being dragged down several random hallways away from Colin, Nathan had been unceremoniously thrown into what appeared to be an arena of sorts. The cultist let out a smirk and closed the door behind him. Locked in with no possible way to get out, the only thing Nathan could do was take a look at the surroundings.

The entire arena looked more like the inside of a cave than an arena. Large stone walls surrounded the place, yet there were no seats for anyone to sit on. There were a few stone dragons etched on the walls, but the way they were carved wasn't all that reassuring. The few candles that were lit gave the adherence that something was about to go very wrong very fast.

_Ok, calm down_, Nathan thought. _Creepier things have happened to you since you've gotten here. This shouldn't be that hard to get through – why is it so cold here all of a sudden?_

Looking back at his surroundings, Nathan saw that some sort of fog had begun to form in the arena. Immediately, the hairs on the back of his neck began to stand up as he tried to assess what was going on. He tried to find the source of where the fog was coming, but there were no vents back to the surface. Then, to his immense shock, voices began to echo throughout the arena.

_"This isn't fair! You've completely made it so that you'd come out the winner!"_

_"Well, if you didn't like the rules so much, why did you agree to them in the first place?"_

_"No one reads the freaking rules, Nathan! Rules are always supposed to be made fair for the people involved in a bet, yet somehow you've managed to twist it to your advantage!"_

Now officially horrified, Nathan could only watch as black smoke began pouring out of the dragons' mouths. They began to mold together in one particular spot in front of him until, moments later, what looked like another kid was standing in front of him. He looked to be about the same age as Colin. His shaggy brown hair hung low over his brown eyes. The clothes he was wearing consisted of a simple grey T-shirt and black jeans. The most disturbing part, however, was the scowl that was on his face as he glared at Nathan, who was now stumbling back from what he saw.

"E-Eric…"Nathan barely managed to sputter.

_"This is your fault, Nathan,"_ the specter said. _"If you hadn't tried to screw me over, none of this would have ever happened. You accuse that new guy of being selfish, and yet all you've ever done was to go out of your way to cause trouble for everyone that has crossed your path. You did that when you screwed me over during the bet, and you're doing it now to that new guy."_

"That- that's not true," Nathan feebly said.

_"Spare it, you hack!"_ the shadow said, kicking Nathan square in the gut and sending him crashing into the wall. _"You caused all of this, and now it's time for you to pay"._

With that, the shadowy figure of the friend that believed Nathan had wronged him went on the attack and began pummeling him. He seemed to show the same ruthlessness that Colin showed when he was angry but it seemed to be a lot worse. At times, Nathan was able to get some blows in, but they just seemed to go right through the guy when they made contact with him. Barely even phased, the shadow continued on with the attack, striking him down with blows and slamming him into the walls. With no possible way to physically make contact with this thing, Nathan could only pray for nothing short of a miracle to get him out of this.

And out of all the times you could wish for something like that to happen, it actually happened for Nathan. Suddenly the door into the arena was knocked off its hinges by what appeared to be a flurry of peach blossoms. The two cultists that were apparently standing guards were thrown into the room and knocked unconscious. The blossoms then blew over and swarmed around the shadow, distorting it until it had blown away.

Nathan, banged up from the attack, sat with his back against the wall as an animal began to take form inside the peach blossoms. As it began to take shape, Nathan noticed that it looked like a rhino. He wore a white robe like Shen did, but his had a gold sash around the middle as opposed to the all-white design that Shen had. He was also wearing a grey jacket of some sort over the robe that had various details decorated all over. Nathan took a jump back in shock and smacked his head against the rock wall. He knew who this guy was and also knew that he was supposed to be dead.

"Are you all right, Nathan?" the ghost of Master Thundering Rhino asked.

"I… think so," Nathan managed to say.

"Good," Rhino said. "You have to hurry. If Shen and Tai-Lung aren't stopped now, they will destroy everything that stands in their way".

"I…I can't," Nathan said. "That shadow was right. All I've ever done since the accident was cause trouble for everyone I've come into contact with. Even if I do try to help the others, I'll only succeed in making things worse".

"Nathan, you can't give up now," Rhino said. "You're friends are all counting on you to help them save China".

"There's no point," Nathan cried. "I'm a horrible friend who drags everyone down".

"Nathan, if you give up now, you'll only make what that shadow said true," Rhino said.

"What… what do you mean?" Nathan asked.

"Nathan, I've watched you ever since you and Colin came to this world," Rhino said. "You've made friends with some of the greatest Kung-Fu masters in all of China as well as a damaged sociopath and have more than once agreed to what they have to say. But relying on others to guide you through everything isn't enough. You have let the incident with your friend cloud you're judgment and make you lose faith in yourself. You have to stand on your own two feet and help others when they need to rely on you."

"And what about Colin?" Nathan scoffed. "I don't think he'll be pretty keen about me giving him orders".

"Don't be so sure," Rhino said. "Colin may put himself before anything else in most situations, but he trusts you anyway. Although he may not want to admit it, you are the first friend he's ever had in his life. He has counted on you to have his back when it mattered and is likely counting on you to help him see this through to the end".

Nathan stared down at his knees, trying to take in what was going on. Colin, the one guy who believed in his ego more than anything else, legitimately valued him as a friend? Thinking hard, Nathan tried to recount any possible ways that made Colin consider him a friend. After a while, several instances of events that had led up to this moment surfaced in his mind.

Out of all the people he could have shown the Multiverse remote to, Nathan was the only one Colin went to with that information. Despite the harsh things they had said to each other since they got here, Colin still brought himself to stay behind for him when he fixed the remote. And even though he had his own problems to deal with, Colin was able to sympathize with him and try and cheer him up when their pasts had been revealed. Nathan thought about all this and realized he had stood by his side since the whole mess started and was likely counting on him to step up to the plate.

"You're right," Nathan said. "I've been so focused on making everyone else happy that I've forgotten about my needs in the process. What I think is just as important as what everyone else thinks."

"That's right, Nathan," Rhino said. "You just have to keep believing in yourself".

Rhino extended a hoof to help Nathan up which he readily accepted. After shaking off the dust from when he was being smacked around, Nathan made his way past the unconscious cultist through the door, intent on helping Colin end this nonsense once and for all.

* * *

><p>After being dragged away from Nathan for who knows how long, Colin was shoved into some unknown room by the cultist that had been dragging him. Not one to take this lying down, Colin made a move to attack the cultist, but the cultist had already closed the door long before he got there. Colin pulled on the locked door for a few moments but was unable to get it open. Groaning about the series of unfortunate events that led up to him being in this situation, he decided to just look around and try to figure a way out.<p>

On closer inspection, the entire arena looked like the Dragon Grotto Shifu had taken him to when he tried to help him get over his past. However, this did not have the same the same feel as last time. The stones lining the walls were a lot darker than the ones back at the Valley of Peace. Furthermore, the stone dragons that decorated the walls had a much more evil appearance than the other ones. The candles that were lit gave off an adherence that whatever was going to happen was not going to end very well.

_This is just great, _Colin bitterly thought. _This is what I get for trusting other people! But if those cultists think I'm just going to stay – and here we go with the freaking cold again!_

A thick fog had begun to form inside the room out of nowhere. This immediately struck Colin as odd because there was no way fog could just appear in a closed space for some reason. Already on edge, he stepped back into a defensive stance, waiting for some sort of attack to come at him. Then, to his horror, the same echoing voices that he'd heard back at the Dragon Grotto began echoing around him.

_"How many times do we have to tell you to stay in line?"_

_"I'm not going to tell you again, you little brat! Clean out the garage!"_

_"Those people aren't to be trusted. They have no sense of common decency at all!"_

At once, black smoke began pouring out of the dragons' mouths. They formed into two clumps before they hit the ground in front of Colin and materialized the shadows of his parents. Colin just stood there, horrified about what he was seeing.

_"What an embarrassment,"_ the shadow of his father said. _"We try so hard to keep you from falling into the pit of social decay, and you stand head deep in it. You are a disgrace."_

_"That's not entirely true,"_ the shadow of his mom said. _"He at least doesn't trust anyone he meets"._

_"True, true,"_ the shadow of his dad said. _"At least he managed to gleam one good thing from us."_

Colin couldn't take the words anymore. He covered his ears with his hands, but the shadows of his demonic parents still made their voices heard. Tears threaten to pour down his increasingly pale face.

_"Still,"_ his shadow mother sighed, _"It's obvious he was a waste of our time. We were the only ones who wanted him. No one else did."_

His shadow father looked down on him with eyes that could be straight from the devil himself. Colin tried his best to back away from them but they kept getting closer, seemingly getting more evil in the process.

_"You see what you've done?" _the shadow father asked._ "If you have just listened to us, you wouldn't be moving from foster home to foster home, being cared for by people who could've cared less about you! Now you're stuck here with enemies who want you dead and friends who wish you were gone, you brat! We gave you a roof over your head and food to eat, but you called the cops and had us arrested, you ungrateful, selfish piece of crud!"_

"No… no… NO!" Colin yelled.

If his hands can't drown out the voices, maybe his voice can. His shadow parents maniacally laughed at him, throwing insults at him. Colin squeezed his eyes shut, making his eyelids a dam to block the tears.

_"You don't even have the guts to face us!"_ his shadow dad taunted.

"SHUT UP!" Colin screamed.

Finally having enough of what was going on, Colin stood up and took a swing, but as soon as his fist made contact with his shadow father, he vanished along with his shadow mother. Then Colin felt a hand on his shoulder and turned around, ready to attack. He saw it was another shadow but a shadow of an old tortoise rather than a middle aged human, woman or man. While the shadows of his parents were creepy and malicious, the shadow of the tortoise was friendly and comforting.

Colin relaxed and put up the barriers around his heart, protecting him from people like his parents or anyone at all. He didn't know who this tortoise was, but just by the feel of his aura, he knew that the tortoise was a friend not foe. He smiled and acted like his old confident, somewhat arrogant self.

"Young man, are you alright?" spoke the old tortoise.

Deep down, Colin was far from fine. He hadn't been fine since he first learned that he was longer going to live with his parents, and that whole experience really took its toll on him, but Colin knew he could never admit he was anything less.

"Yeah, nothing not even bizarre shadows that come out of nowhere, can touch me," he said.

"Hmmm, I see," the tortoise said skeptically.

"Anyway, who the hell are you?" Colin asked.

"I am Grand Master Oogway."

_I've heard that name before, but where? _Colin thought. Then it hit him, and Colin became horrified. He got into a defensive stance.

"Wait a minute, you're dead!" he gawked. "Wait! My parents never really here so then…Holy crud! You're a ghost!"

Unfazed by Colin's outburst, Oogway replied, "In a way, yes, but I can assure you that I will not harm you. Now we must meet up with Nathan. The fate of the world depends on you two".

"Ha! As if Nathan or even this world ever needed me," Colin retorted. "If it weren't for Nathan, we wouldn't be stuck in this mess".

"You've let your personal demons convince you of a lie," Oogway said. "Nathan needs you and not just to save the world. He needs you as a friend."

"He doesn't trust me," Colin snapped. "Actually, he doesn't even want me around anymore. And given the track record of everything that has happened since I got here, that's fine by me. I don't need him or anybody else. The world could go to hell if it wants. See if I care".

Colin turned his back to the old tortoise, not bothering to hear what he had to say. He had learned early on that the only person you could trust is yourself, and everyone else will only hurt you. It's the only true lesson his parents and all of his foster parents had have taught him.

"Obviously, you were unsuccessful in conquering your demons at the Dragon Grotto," Oogway remarked.

Whatever Colin was expecting Oogway to say, it certainly wasn't this. He took a step back as he turned around to face the old tortoise once again.

"How did you know I was there?" he asked.

"I'm the first person to successfully conquer my demons in that place," Oogway said.

Colin just stood there, not really getting what he had said. He couldn't understand what he had meant. Then Colin remembered something Shifu once said: _In the past, countless kung-fu masters have come here to battle their inner demons to finally obtain inner peace, many failed, only three have succeeded, Po and I being two of them._

"Oh so it was you who was the third successor," he said.

"That's right." Oogway nodded. "It seems that, although your parents are gone, they still have a strong hold on you. Your memories of them fuel your rage. You no longer trust others in fear that they will hurt you just like your parents have hurt you".

"Well, that's just how the world is. Self-preservation is the key, my man," Colin said.

"What about Nathan?" Oogway asked. "He's your friend".

"Was," Colin said. "That ship sailed as soon as he got us stuck here. And even if it didn't, he would have betrayed me or hurt me in some way sooner or later."

"Not quite," Oogway said. "Nathan was the first one to befriend you, and even though your selfishness has annoyed him beyond his patience, he still sticks by you no matter what. He'll never leave you. Nathan trusts you, and right now, he needs you. Are you going to abandon him, and thus bringing the end of the world?"

Colin, though taken aback by this, tried to think about why he would need him. He thought about the time he first met Nathan during a visit to some family friends in Saginaw when he was staying in his twelfth adoptive family. Colin sat alone in one of the rooms at the house, determinedly trying to avoid everyone as if they were poison. Only Nathan had the nerve to go up to the room and talk to him. Slowly but surely, they became fast friends, even keeping touch when Colin was shipped back to the old orphanage after his routine several month trial period had expired badly. He also remembered during that period of time when Nathan entrusted Colin with his secret crush on popular girl Linda. He remembered Nathan Skyping him during the early days whenever his foster dad was drunk. After moving from that family, he remembered ritual phone calls and e-mails, something that Colin looked forward to since he hated his life. Maybe Nathan did trust him. Maybe Nathan will never hurt him like his parents did.

But then he remembered Nathan saying that he hated him during that fight just after Shifu suggested separating them for their safety. Nathan never took it back when they got back together. Instead, he watched Nathan replace him with Master Ox, with Master Croc, with Lorelei… with Tigress. Nathan doesn't care about him anymore. And no one else trusts him. They see him as a liability more than anything. They always did. Everyone did. Colin's eyes turned from soft to angry.

"Yes," he muttered. "Nathan doesn't want me around, so why should I want him? He could die in this mess, and I won't care as long as I'm the one to kill Tai Lung, Shen, and the rest of Myrkor."

Colin expected some kind of retort on how he's being selfish and cruel from Oogway. Instead, Oogway only nodded his hand as if he understood Colin.

"Colin, you always bear everyone else's problems on your shoulders," he said. "It is an admirable quality considering everything that has happened to you. And while at times people may see you as their least favorite ally, it does not mean that you are their least favorite friend. You are strong, resourceful, and loyal to a fault. These are the merits of a great friend as well, but only when you realize that you don't have to do everything by yourself".

Colin was completely taken aback by what was going on. _Is this guy right?_ he thought. _Have I become so concerned about keeping myself from being harmed that I've blinded myself to what people have actually thought about me? Maybe this guy's right. Maybe it is time I start thinking about other people._

He was so distracted by his new found thoughts that Colin almost didn't notice Oogway glowing in a bright light. It was only when the odd chill returned to the room that he became aware of what was going on.

"Colin, follow the pink peach blossoms to Nathan and the others." he said as pieces of Oogway separated from his body, becoming peach blossoms. "Taking down your barriers will not only help you save the world but will ultimately save yourself. You're not lost Colin".

By this time, only Oogway's head was left. Colin just stood there, completely lost in the scene that he was in.

"And remember this,"Oogway said. "Your parents have said a lot of things to you. Things that no child should ever hear from their parents. You didn't deserve it, and none of them were true, but think of this. You're story may not have such a happy beginning, but that doesn't determine who you are. It is the rest of the journey that matters".

Oogway was now completely made of peach blossoms. Colin watched the peach blossoms float around him. Then in a swift motion, they floated to the now open exit, disappearing into the darkness.

Realizing what he had to do, Colin ran after them.

**Well that's a wrap for this chapter**

**Again, sorry for the delay in getting this chapter in. I promise we'll get the rest of the chapters in as fast as we can**

**As usual, R&R plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	22. Friend Mending

**What up, peoplezez**

**Sorry for the long wait between chapters. Obviously I've been too distracted by summer vacation (which, by the way, started early for me since I'm in college) that I've haven't been able to put much of my time into working on it.**

**Regardless, enjoy**

The peach blossom petals traveled down the dark tunnel way, but Colin just kept running after them. There always seemed to be hundreds of blossoms, but Colin didn't ponder the illogicalness of that. All his attention went into finding Nathan and defeating Tai Lung and Shen. He was so gonna kick their butts! Then he noticed that the thick moving cloud of petals was growing thinner.

_No! No! No! Don't fail on me now, Oogway!_ Colin thought.

When the cloud narrowed down to five petals, a bright light shone in the distance, blinding Colin. Closing his eyes, he didn't see the person in front of him until he bumped into him instead. Colin opened his eyes. The light disappeared and the petals were gone. All was here was himself and…Nathan!

"Dude, are you okay?" Colin asked. For the first time since he landed in this dimension, he was thrilled to see Nathan.

"Yeah," Nathan said. "Man Colin, am I glad to see you. Huh, I never thought I would say that since I landed in here".

"Yeah, yeah," Colin laughed. "You weren't so pleasant to be around either."

"Oh, Colin, I would like you to meet–?"

Nathan was cut off when Master Thundering Rhino was no longer standing next to him. He looked around for the ghost.

_Am I going crazy, or has he disappeared? _Nathan thought.

"Meet who?" Colin asked, confused.

_I guess he disappeared. He is a ghost, and I guess he was only meant to be on Earth to guide me to Colin. Now that I'm with Colin, his job is done. _

"No one," Nathan said. "Come on. Let's find the others."

He grabbed Colin's arm pulling him in the opposite direction in which Nathan was going. However, they'd only gone a few feet when Colin pulled them in the other direction to slow them down.

"Wait," Colin said.

Nathan let go, confused as into what Colin was about to do or say. However, an air of awkwardness surrounded where they were standing as Colin seemed to have trouble finding the right words to say. Finally, after a few moments of him pacing around, he seemed to have figured out what he was going to say.

"I'm sorry for acting like a selfish jerk to you these past couple of months," he said. "It's my fault for keeping us trapped here. If it wasn't for me, we probably wouldn't be in this mess. I was just frustrated with everything that had happened to me, and that was keeping me from thinking about how what I did affected everyone else. Of course, that also meant I though no one else cared about me. You see, you're my first friend, and I was honestly expecting you to ditch me or hurt me or whatever like everyone else does".

Nathan just stared at Colin, taken aback at what he just said. He was confused as to why his friend was apologizing about being stuck here when he was the one who had been causing more problems for him since they got there. After a while of inner turmoil, he decided his friend would not blame himself for what was happening.

"No, it's my fault," he said. "My whole life's been a mess ever since I had that fight with Eric. Ever since that happened, a lot of my friends had been avoiding me like I was the plague, and on top of that, I've been virtually unable to make new friends. When we became friends, I had decided to do everything in my power to make sure I didn't ruin it, which, as you can see, turned out horribly".

"Yeah, well I think I kinda did more to drive the wedge between us," Colin said.

Colin rubbed the back of his head in the universal sign of awkwardness. From what Nathan could tell, he never was good with his kind of stuff. Luckily, he didn't have to worry. Nathan spoke up instead.

"It's okay," he said. "From where you came from, it's completely understandable, and I should have been more considerate of how you felt. And I'm sorry for breaking the remote. It was totally uncalled for."

"Hey, no problem, man," Colin said. "You know, as much as I hate this place, it was pretty cool meeting some interesting people. So let me get this straight, you don't hate me?"

"I could never hate you, Colin," Nathan laughed. "You're my best friend, and you know how to forgive which is what friends do. I may have screwed things up with the remote, but never once did you threaten to sever ties unlike Eric."

"If Eric was truly your friend, he would have forgiven you by now," Colin said. "I'm just glad that after all I've been through from my parents to many of the world's lamest adoptive parents that I was thrown with, you were the one person who never abandoned me. You were always there for me."

"You know, Colin, if we get back to our own dimension, maybe I can talk my parents into adopting you," Nathan said. "They really like you and are glad that I have finally found another friend after that incident with Eric. Not only that, but they were thinking of having another kid. I don't think they would mind in having you."

"Really?" Colin asked.

Colin had met Nathan's parents when he first came over to Nathan's house two years ago and always felt jealous that Nathan had two _loving_ parents. Colin wouldn't mind being raised by them if it meant no longer being near orphanages and getting out of the vicious cycle that he called the 'brainless adoptive parent system' and finally knowing what it was like to have a mother and a father who actually loved and encouraged you.

"Yeah, really," Nathan said. "No promises, but I can try."

"No more fights that could possibly end our friendship, okay?" Colin asked, sheepishly. He held out his hand.

"Okay." Nathan shook hands with Colin.

"Now which way to Tigress, Lorelei, and everyone else?" Colin asked, sounding much more confident than he had been a few seconds ago.

"That way," Nathan pointed to the direction opposite of where he was going earlier.

"You sure?"

Nathan shrugged his shoulders. "Not really, but considering the track record of everything that's happened, I'd say it's pretty likely".

"Well, it's all we got. Come on. Let's go!"

**Well, looks like that friendships back on track. Now all they need to do is kick but**

**Oh, and for those of you who have watched any of the Annoying Orange webisodes or the TV series that just came out, I've started a one shot collection story called Annoying Wars that chronicles what I would imagine Orange preparing himself for the show the only way he know how: by annoying the crud out of some of the biggest baddies that we have seen over the years. So if you want to see something funny, go read it or else I just might send Orange to annoy you next**

**R&R plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	23. Holy War

**What up peoplezez**

**Man, what a nightmare this was to make. You have no idea how hard it was for the both of us to coordinate everything, and I had thought this up months in advance**

**Well, regardless, enjoy**

Colin and Nathan had been running down tunnel after tunnel for God knows how long. The phrase "there's always a light at the end of the tunnel" seemed to be nonexistent in the one Nathan and Colin were in, and they were beginning to get sick of it. They needed to find their friends and defeat Shen and Tai Lung, but they now doubted that they'd be able to do it if they were running blindly through a dark tunnel that appears to never end. Luckily, for the two boys, they haven't run into any guards, but at the same time, the lack of guards seemed suspicious.

"Hey, Nathan, do you have any idea where we're going?" Colin asked.

"Not really," Nathan sheepishly admitted.

"So we've been running around without any idea if we're on the right track?" Colin asked, annoyed that Nathan was leading down a path to nowhere.

"Hey, I told you I'm not completely sure we're going the right way," Nathan defended himself.

"Then how are we supposed to find and rescue Lorelei, Tigress, and the others while kicking Shen and Tai Lung's butts?" Colin snapped.

"I don't know, but just trust me. I'm improvising," Nathan said with a smirk.

"'Trust me, I'm improvising'?" Colin asked. "That's really the best thing you can think of to explain why were lost?"

"Ok, so I tried to take a page from the Colin playbook. Big deal".

"At least you're learning how to be awesome like me," Colin laughed. "Up until now, you were too wimpy for my taste".

"Wimpy?" Nathan gawked. "I've been learning kung fu from Master Croc and Master Ox in case you haven't noticed".

"I heard Tigress kicked your butt," Colin teased.

"I've improved since then," Nathan defended himself. "Anyway, I see another tunnel on the left. I've got a gut feeling about it."

"Well, I'll trust your gut instincts, improviser," Colin said.

"Thanks, Colin of Awesomeness," Nathan said, drawing out Colin's new nickname sarcastically.

The two boys made a sharp left and followed the tunnel as it sharply curved to the right. But as soon as the two boys made it past the turn, they were surprised to see a bright light and the silhouettes of two rhino guards. Colin and Nathan quickly stopped running and hid before the turn so the guards couldn't see them.

"What do you think is going on?" Nathan asked.

"I don't know, but my intuition is telling me that we'll find our friends on the other side of where that light is coming from," Colin said.

"So on three, I'll use my kung fu to knock out those guards, and we'll disguise ourselves with their uniforms," Nathan said.

Yeah because two human teenage boys dressed up in armor made for two thousand pound rhinos will totally fool Shen and Tai-Lung," Colin countered.

"Just shut up and count to three," Nathan snapped

"Ok, ok… still think this is a bad idea though," Colin said. "One, two, three… Go!"

Nathan snuck behind the two guards whose backs were to Nathan. With beings larger than Nathan, Nathan aimed for the legs, using the rhinos' weight against them. He kicked hard at the left guard's ankle, making the rhino stumble but not fall. The rhino, along with his fellow guard, noticed them and pointed their spears at Nathan. Nathan managed to grab one, stealing it, and prepared to use it as a weapon. The spear less rhino tried to get the spear back, but Nathan managed to duck under his reach and whacked him in the back of the head, knocking him right out. At the sight of the rhino slumped motionlessly on the ground, Nathan was shocked. He felt his body shiver as he flashbacked to almost killing Eric.

_"Eric, are you okay?!" Nathan shouted from the staircase, eyes fixed on his motionless friend. Nathan ran down the stairs to Eric. He kneeled right by him. Never before had he seen Eric so still and so pale with only the red blood on his head contrasting against the paleness of his face. Nathan shook his friend. "Eric! Wake up!" He shook harder. "Eric, please wake up!" Tears were welling in Nathan's eyes._

_Eric let out a soft groan. "Nathan."_

_Relief washed in like a downpour. "Yeah?"_

"Nate, look out!"

Colin's voice snapped Nathan back into reality. Nathan stared wide-eyed as the rhino guard was about to thrust his spear into him. That's when Colin came to the rescue and pushed Nathan out of the way. As Nathan went about regaining his composure, Colin began laying into the rhino's exposed head with punch after punch. Disoriented, the rhino tried to get another aim on Nathan, but from all his stumbling, the rhino slammed his head on a piece of flowstone suspended on a piece of limestone and fell down, knocked out consciousness. Satisfied with his work, Colin went over to help Nathan up.

"Are you okay, dude?" Colin asked. "You kinda blanked out there for a moment".

"Yeah, thanks, Colin," Nathan muttered. "I told you that I've improved".

"Those were just lackeys with all brawn and no brain," Colin retorted. "When you can defeat a kung fu master, then I'll respect you".

"This doesn't make any sense," Nathan said. "Why are there rhino's guarding this place? I thought Myrkor was an all reptile group".

"I think it's either just bad guys for hire or something Shen pulled out of a parallel universe," Colin said. "These guys don't appear to be bright enough to know that they're working for the bad guys".

"Whatever, let's just grab whatever we can get from them" Nathan said.

Colin took the other rhino's spear. They couldn't wear their armor because it was too big and too heavy for them so they had to make do with their weapons. The two boys were surprised that no one noticed the skirmish, but perhaps that was because of the little noise made. Nathan did manage to knock out that rhino on instant and the other rhino had tough enough skin that it wouldn't be down for the count too long from Colin wailing into him, but someone would've at least noticed the fight. Colin and Nathan didn't dwell on the lack of backup, but stealthily approached the exit.

What they saw was that the tunnel led to balcony that surrounded the perimeter of the large, brightly lit room. It was similar in appearance to the arenas they were in, but this room did not look like an arena but a place of religious or royal significance. At the front of the room was a large golden statue of a serpent like dragon with its mouth wide open. At its mouth appeared to be a one-story, wall less, golden pagoda with red silk curtains in place of walls. However, it was what was inside that pagoda that shocked Nathan and Colin.

"Is that… Lorelei?" Nathan asked.

"It looks like it," Colin said. "And look. Tigress and the others are chained to chairs with the rhino guards and what looks like the full force of the Myrkor cultists behind them".

"And check out who Lorelei is with," Nathan said." It looks like Shen and some monk looking dude on a throne or some fancy looking chair and…" Nathan got a closer look. "Is that a kangaroo holding a red umbrella over Lorelei? Wait a minute, why is Lorelei dressed in a red robe? And why are they kneeling next to each other while having a tea party with the monk?"

While Nathan was asking these questions, Colin was observing Lorelei and Shen prepare tea for the monk and for each other. He noticed that when Lorelei poured tea for the monk and Shen, the monk and Shen appeared to give Lorelei something. Colin couldn't tell what it was from his viewpoint. Throughout the whole ritual, Lorelei did not look happy. She looked angry but sad at the same time. Then everything clicked.

"Nathan, it's a wedding!" he said. "Shen somehow forced Lorelei into marrying him, and judging by how those guards hold their spears at our friends, I'm guessing Shen's using their lives as an incentive for Lorelei to marry Shen!"

"A wedding?" Nathan asked confused. "Looks more like a tea party to me. Shouldn't there be a priest with Lorelei dressed in white and Shen dressed in a tux?"

Colin slapped the back of Nathan's head. "Ouch!" Nathan nearly shouted. Luckily, no one heard him. "What was that for?"

"For being an idiot," Colin retorted. "The rules here are a lot different than back home Nathan. This is a traditional Chinese wedding. You see, in some families, the Tea Ceremony is the equivalent to an exchanging of vows. That kangaroo with the red umbrella is the 'Good Luck Woman'. She holds the umbrella over the bride, or in this case Lorelei, to protect her from evil spirits. Lorelei is dressed in red because that's what Chinese brides wear. The bride and groom are supposed to kneel in front of their parents and pour tea as if they were asking permission to marry. Because of the circumstances, Shen, I assume, used some monk instead of his parents and Lorelei's parents. Whenever the bride serves tea to either the parents or to the groom, they give her gifts like jewelry or Li Shi money wrapped in red envelopes, the latter I'm assuming the monk and Shen are giving Lorelei. When the bride and groom serve each other, it's like an exchange of vows".

"So Lorelei is currently being forced to marry Shen," Nathan said. "Where's Tai-Lung through all of this?"

"Don't know," Colin said. "He's probably somewhere else because he apparently hates Shen and would probably think Shen's idea of a forced marriage between Shen and Lorelei is nothing short of sacrilege".

"Why's that?" Nathan asked. "I would assume this sort of thing would be amusing to him".

"Tai-Lung might be evil, but at least he has pride," Colin said.

"Ok, I get the point," Nathan muttered. "So how do we free Lorelei and the others?"

"Like this," Colin said.

Before he could stop him, Colin tossed his spear which landed in the middle of the table the tea was on. The wedding was interrupted and all eyes turned to Nathan and Colin.

"You _idiot!_" Nathan seethed. "You have no weapon, and we're outnumbered. Not only that but you just gave us away."

"Well, if you had a better plan then you should have spoken up before I threw that spear," Colin said.

"Does the term 'element of surprise' mean anything to you?" Nathan asked.

"At this point, I think we can just throw that out the window," Colin said

Nathan face palmed himself. Despite everything that had happened in the past few hours, Colin hadn't done much to deflate his ego. However, there were more pressing matters to attend to at the moment.

"Nathan? Colin?" Lorelei shouted in surprise.

"_Get then!" _Shen commanded to the cultists.

Colin tugged on Nathan's shirt. "Look, there's a set of stairs." Colin pointed to the staircase forty feet away from them. "We gotta save Lorelei and the others".

"Good thinking," Nathan said as he pulled out a set of keys. "Luckily, I snatched these from one of the rhino guards. I think one of these keys will free Shen's 'guests'".

"Well, let's hurry before the cultists come get us," Colin said.

The two boys ran to the staircase. Nathan looked up and saw a flying arrow aiming straight for Colin. Nathan grabbed the collar of Colin's shirt and pulled him back.

"Wh – hey!" However, when the arrow landed in front of Colin, he understood Nathan's act. "Thanks for returning the favor, Nate."

"No prob." Nathan saw more flying arrows. "Looks like some or all of the cultists are armed with bow-and-arrows. We gotta be careful".

"Gotcha! See if you can use your spear to knock the arrows off course".

"Ok".

Colin took the lead while Nathan swung his spear, knocking down flying arrows from Colin and him. A few arrows came dangerously close to killing him and Colin. Luckily, Colin was fast, and Nathan had a good eye, and right now, those skills were really needed. The adrenaline was pumping in the boys' systems as they continued to make their way toward the stairs. Nathan had never been good at track back at school, but right now, he felt like he could beat Usain Bolt in an Olympic race. Colin, on the other hand, was used to speed and was no stranger to running. He was the first one to reach the staircase, but he slid to a stop when he saw the cultists ascending upon him. He turned around to see Nathan, not too far behind, swinging his spear around. That's when Colin had an idea.

"Nathan, get over here!" Colin yelled

Nathan ran faster to Colin. "What?"

"Slide down the railing and point your spear at the cultists," Colin said

"What?" Nathan gawked.

But Nathan had no time to react as Colin forced him up on the railing and pushed him down. Out of instinct, Nathan pointed his spear at the ascending cultists, slashing some of the cultists' arms and sides of their bodies. The scars slowed some of them down enough for Colin to slide down the railing without fear from danger. As soon as Nathan and Colin were down, Colin ran to retrieve his spear, and Nathan ran to his friends.

"I thought I told you two to stay behind?" Shifu snapped.

"Yeah well, you know how Colin is," Nathan said. "He'll never bring himself to take orders from anyone else if he can get away with it. Besides we had to get the remote back from Shen. Now stop talking so I can find the right key to free you guys".

Unfortunately, he couldn't simply free his friends. He had to deal with the nine angry rhino guards who were using their lives as bargaining chips. The rhinos gripped their spears, ready to attack. Nathan got into a defensive stance. But to his shock, nine arrows came out of nowhere and ran though the rhinos' armor, striking random parts of their bodies and allowing Nathan to knock them out. Once that was finished, Nathan turned around to where the arrows came from only to see Lorelei with a crossbow and a sack of arrows and Colin with his spear, guarding Lorelei while Shen was nowhere to be found.

"Where'd you get the crossbow?" Nathan asked, grateful for Lorelei's assistance.

"Oh, while I was going to get the spear, I had knocked out a cultist who happened to have a crossbow on him," Colin explained. "I stole it along with the sack of arrows. Then I came to Lorelei's rescue and prevented Shen from taking Lorelei away from the room. I gave Lorelei the crossbow and arrows, and she used them to save you".

"Oh, well, thanks, Lorelei," Nathan said.

"No, thank you and Colin for saving me," Lorelei said. "If you two hadn't gotten here in time, I might have been stuck doing Shen's dirty work for the rest of my life".

Nathan turned to Tigress and fumbled with the keys to find the one that will unlock Tigress's and hopefully everyone else's shackles. However, there were so many keys on the ring that it was hard to

"It's the small, silver key," Tigress said.

"Thanks," Nathan said.

Nathan used the small, silver key to unlock the bonds on Tigress's hands and feet. As soon as Tigress was free, he was engulfed in a hug. "You're alright. Ever since we were separated, I feared that Shen and Tai Lung were torturing you or worse, killed you."

Nathan returned the hug. "I'm alright and so is Colin. Let's just say we had a little otherworldly help. Now we need to free everyone else."

Tigress let go. "Got it."

Nathan went about freeing everyone else. When the task was done, Master Croc playfully slapped Nathan on the back. "Nice job on the rescue, kid."

"Thanks, Master Croc".

"Dude, that whole sliding on the rail while taking out cultists was awesome!" Po said.

"Yeah, it was, wasn't it," Nathan said. "I guess it comes with getting my confidence back".

"Uh, guys, we've got a bigger problem," Colin interrupted.

He pointed to the doorway on the other side of the golden dragon. Looking over, they saw something that had made their problem even worse: Shen had returned with an angry looking Tai-Lung. Immediately, the cultists cleared a path for them for them to make their way over to the group.

"What did I tell you?" Tai-Lung snapped. "Didn't I say this wedding was a bad idea?"

"Ok, so the humans were more resilient than we gave them credit for," Shen said. "That doesn't make them any more of a threat".

In the corner of his eye, Colin saw Lorelei tense up a bit. Given the track record of everything Shen had done since he'd returned, he couldn't say that he blamed her. Shen had done everything in his power to make life miserable for them. To say that they were a little sore about what he had done would have been the understatement of the century.

"Well, well, it seems congratulations are in order," Tai-Lung said. "I don't know how you managed to escape from whatever Myrkor did to you, but it was a bad idea for you to come here. All you've done was give us the perfect opportunity to both exact revenge on the ones who stopped us and to make sure you don't get in our way again".

Myrkor immediately swarmed around them and formed a circle around them, blocking any possible escape. They then grabbed everyone except the boys, Po, and Shifu and pulled them into the circle, leaving them alone to deal with Tai-Lung and Shen.

"I certainly appreciate the memories of your reality that you left for us," Shen said. "It saves us the trouble of having to find out what we're up against when we invade your reality. You might have been trying to find out who was really going to be there for you, but all you've done was give us our ultimate victory. Once we take care of you, we will conquer this world, your world, and every other world that stands in our way".

"Can you manage that, Shen?" a voice said out of nowhere.

Looking up at the balcony they had entered in, the boys saw the Soothsayer standing over the crowd, her eyes focused solely on Shen. Shen, after a moment of stunned disbelief, managed to regain his composure.

"Ah, Soothsayer," he chided. "I was wondering when you were going to show up. Come to tell me I'm going to win?"

"You haven't changed a bit, Shen," Soothsayer said. "Your overconfidence has always been your greatest weakness. Those two boys may have had horrible experiences, but at least they're-"

"All right, I've heard enough of this," Tai-Lung snapped. "I don't know who you are, but you are a fool if you came here alone".

"Who said I came alone?" Soothsayer asked.

Suddenly, every door in the entire room burst open. Within moments, Myrkor was surrounded by every member of Dende's wolf back and, oddly enough, the Mamunia tribe. Dende was among them, and he did not look particularly happy at what he saw. Shen and Tai-Lung looked around, worried that they might have gotten in over their heads when they sided with the cult.

"They're pretty sore about you kidnapping their friends," Soothsayer said.

Almost as if on cue, Mamunia and the wolf pack jumped Myrkor and an all out brawl ensued. Using the ambush to their advantage, Lorelei and the masters that were being held captive broke free from their captors and leapt into action, taking on cultists that weren't preoccupied with everyone else. Myrkor tried their best to fight them off, but were unable to deal with the combined skill of everyone that was fighting against them. Lorelei and the master's experience, combined with the wolf pack and Mamunia's numerical superiority, were able to take what they were dishing out without so much as flinching and strike back harder. Soothsayer even seemed to be holding her own against the cultists. Within a matter of minutes, the cultists were being pushed back.

Colin, Nathan, Po and Shifu weren't having the same luck however. Incensed by the fact that their plans were unraveling around them, Tai-Lung and Shen had gone on the offensive, each going after the two they felt were in their way. Quickly catching him off guard, Tai-Lung broke the spear Nathan was holding with a single punch and followed it up with a kick to the gut. Shifu covered for him by throwing as many quick blows as he could, but was unable to get any through and was slowly being pushed back. Nathan made his way to Shifu's aid and was able to block some of Tai-Lung's attacks. However, the problem was that he was unable to find a hole to get an attack in and was being pushed back with stinging hits that made their way through.

Po and Colin were having even worse luck at dealing with Shen. Since he managed to retrieve the spear before the fight, Colin was able to protect himself from Shen's halberd strikes. The problem was that his human form lacked the maneuverability that he had when he was a peacock, which he was unable to get a hit in and was vulnerable to the somewhat acrobatic fighting style Shen had. To make matters worse, Po hadn't bothered to get one of the spears that were from the still unconscious rhinos, meaning he was more exposed to Shen's attacks then Colin was. This forced Colin to work double time just to cover them both, something that seemed to give Shen more of an edge over him.

Eventually, it got to a point when Tai-Lung and Shen were able to send the boys flying several feet away from them, forcing Po and Shifu to hold the fort alone. As they were slowly trying to regain their strength, several Mamunia tribesmen stepped in to help the struggling masters, yet were quickly knocked aside. It seemed the rumor that Tai-Lung and Shen had learned everything they had in their mind was true, making it that much harder to figure out how to stop them.

"Ugh, this isn't going well," Colin moaned. "Everything we dish out just gets sent back at us as if it was nothing".

"Yeah, but what can we do?" Nathan asked. "They apparently know everything about how we fight and are able to anticipate whatever we throw at them".

"I know," Colin said. "They have the advantage against us and we can't do anything about".

"Tell me about it," Nathan whined. "I can believe I'm tough enough for Tai-Lung to have a way to beat me".

"That's because you're not," Colin retorted. "I can kick your butt any day of the…?"

Suddenly, Colin stopped in his tracks, an obvious realization settling into his brain. Nathan couldn't tell what he was thinking at first, but after a moment he was able to catch on.

"That's it," Nathan said. "If we're not able to beat the guy we were stuck as, maybe we can beat the guy our friend was stuck as".

"It's worth a shot," Colin said.

With a high five, Colin and Nathan went after the bad guy they weren't stuck as when they first arrived in the universe. Barely making it in time to stop him from getting the upper hand on Shifu, Colin blocked a punch from Tai-Lung and followed it up with a haymaker of his own. The shot dazed him enough to allow Shifu to follow it up with a kick that sent the snow leopard flying a good distance away from them, allowing the human to help Shifu to his feet.

"Thank you… Colin," the red panda said. "You saved my life".

"Finally some gratitude," Colin said. "Just go help the others deal with the cultists, Shifu. I can handle Tai-Lung from here".

"Are you sure," Shifu skeptically asked.

"Best way to know for sure is to be able to stand on your own two feet," Colin said.

With a nod, Shifu ran off to help the others deal with the last stragglers from the cult. As he couldn't see Tai-Lung anywhere after Shifu knocked him away, Colin was forced to go into a defensive stance and wait for the snow leopard to make a move. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Nathan had managed to get the halberd away from Shen and was using it to protect himself from the knives the deranged peacock was using to attack him. A small smile formed on Colin's face as he now knew that his friend really had gotten better.

Suddenly, something large and furry grabbed him from behind and threw him hard into a nearby wall. Groaning from the pain, he barely had time to adjust before Tai-Lung grabbed him by the throat and pinned him down.

"So, you really think you can fare better at preventing me from accepting my destiny than my father and that loser friend of yours?" Tai-Lung chidingly asked.

"Yeah," Colin snapped." And it's about time someone gave you the boot!"

Without even bothering to aim, Colin lifted his right leg up and it collided with Tai-Lung's knads. The snow leopard doubled back, trying to massage the pain that he was in. Colin didn't give him the chance as he went after him with blow after blow right at him. Tai-Lung tried desperately to defend himself from the attacks, but the human was coming in too fast for him to be able to do too much about it.

Eventually it got to the point where Colin knocked him down to the cold floor. He looked around trying to find something that would help him fight back, but was unable to find anything within reach. Then he saw the high priest of the Myrkor cult, slithering away from the action.

"High priest!" Tai-Lung called out. "Get over here and defend your master!"

"Sssorry, Tai-Lung, but it ssseemsss you are unable to fulfill your end of our agreement," the snake said.

A dark mass of arcane light surrounded the high priest. Before the snow leopard could do anything, the snake vanished. Not bothering to be deterred, Colin blasted him with a kick to the head, knocking him right out.

"Told ya you were getting the boot," Colin smirked.

Suddenly, several shouts were heard echoing around the chamber, each seeming to come from the pagoda above the fighting. Looking up, Colin saw what, at first, appeared to be Nathan and Shen trying to strangle each other. On closer inspection, he saw the one thing that was not what he wanted to see: they were each trying to wrestle control of the Multiverse remote out of each other's grip.

"Oh, no," Colin muttered.

Colin quickly ran up the stairs leading to the pagoda. Upon reaching the top, he immediately grab at the remote to help Nathan pull it away from Shen. For a few minutes, the action on the lower floor ceased as everyone looked up to see what was going on. Then, the remote slipped out of their grips and smashed through a stain glass window. Showing the others out of the way, Colin ran to the hole in the mirror and got the just in time to see what happened. The other side of the window appeared to be one of Shen's munitions factories, and unfortunately for the two humans the remote landed right in one of the still full smelting pots.

A high pitched scream of despair escaped Colin's mouth, forcing everyone to cover their ears just to deal with how loud it was. When the noise cleared, neither Shen nor Nathan wanted to approach him for fear that one of his anger episodes might flare up. After several moments, Nathan slowly edged over to his friend.

"Colin?" he asked. "Are you all right?"

As he slowly turned around, the shock in Colin's eyes was slowly being replaced by absolute fury. Quickly sensing that danger was imminent, Nathan backpedaled toward the edge of the pagoda. As the moments passed, Colin's anger seemed to build with each passing second, threatening to overflow at any moment. The crowd below held their breath waiting to see which person he was going to attack first.

They did not have to wait long. In one swift movement, Colin bolted over to Shen and started ramming his knee right into his chest. Nathan tried desperately to stop him, but he was shoved away before he could do anything. Once he was done, Colin grabbed Shen by the neck and began dragging him toward the stairs.

"Why are you doing this?" Shen rasped. "We- we could be friends. Partners in a new world where we both could rule".

"Rule this you undercooked turkey," Colin hissed.

In one movement, Colin threw Shen down the stairs. The peacock bounced down several steps at a time before landing in a crumpled heap at the bottom. Satisfied with what he had done, Colin turned his attention to Nathan, the look in his eyes saying he was going to do something much worse to him.

"Colin, listen to me," Nathan said. "You're my best friend. You know I wouldn't do anything to harm you on purpose. I know you're upset about the remote, but trust me when I tell you I will do everything I can to find a way to get us back to our own reality. You've been a brother to me since got here, and that's something I know you need right now".

What Nathan said did the trick. Immediately, Colin began to calm down, his body relaxing as he regained control of himself. Once he got his composure back, he looked right at Nathan, tears on the verge of falling down his normally indifferent face.

"You… you really mean that?" he asked.

"Of course I do," Nathan said. "You've been there for me since the accident. There's no way I'll even do anything to-!"

Suddenly, Nathan went down to one knee, a blue light suddenly washing over him. Before he could even ask what was going on, Colin went down with the same sensation. On the ground floor, both Tai-Lung and Shen began glowing with the same blue light. Obviously concerned, Tigress and Lorelei ran up the steps to the pagoda. When they reached the top, the saw what appeared to Tai-Lung and Shen slowly getting back to their feet. However, upon looking over the ledge, they saw that the real Tai-Lung and Shen had disappeared, which led them to realize that Colin and Nathan had once again assumed control of their bodies.

"Oh, come on," Colin whined. "Now this isn't right".

"Well its happening whether we like it or not," Nathan said. "Let's just get out of here Colin. Now that the cultists are taken care of, this place is getting creepier than it was with the cultists lurking around the place.

**Wow, I would not want to be Colin in that situation**

**Well, were now getting close to the end of Multiverse Mix-Up. Despite the turbulence of the co-author situation, I'd say this is one of my best stories so far**

**Smile-I'mTheEndOfAllThatYouSee: "Trust me. I'm improvising" is an actual quote from an acquaintance of mine. I loved it so much that I used it when writing Nathan's dialogue. **

**R&R plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	24. A Weird Ending to a Weird Journey

**What up peoplezez**

**Well, this is it. After over a year working on this story (and the headache that came with the whole inconsistent co-author thing) I'm coming to a close with the story. If Smile- ImTheEndOfAllThatYouSee and I decide to make a legit sequel to this please be the first to read it.**

**Enjoy**

It had been a week since Tai Lung and Shen were killed…again…. along with the cult being disbanded. The majority of those that had been caught were under lock-and-key at a maximum security prison. Their palace had crumbled to dust thanks to Master Rhino and Master Croc, who demolished the place using lots of modified fireworks Colin help create. They created explosions similar to dynamite which Po declared "the most awesome thing ever!" Unfortunately, Po stole a few and stashed them in his room. When Zeng had a message for Po and looked inside Po's room, he stumbled upon one of the modified fireworks and nearly blew his feathers off. Shifu forced Po to get rid of them shortly after, something that Colin and Nathan laughed for days on end about.

However, that laughter had only been a temporarily distraction. For the whole week, Colin had been furious about the permanent loss of the remote. He ranted every chance he got driving everyone else nearly insane. Nathan, who would have lost it if his thoughts weren't elsewhere, reminded Colin that they can still make a great life here and that at least Colin didn't have to worry about adoptions again. That made Colin a feel a bit better, but even Nathan was mad at the loss of the remote. Without the remote, there was no way for him to go back to Saginaw and see his family and friends. He missed his mother and father like crazy and often thought what they were doing now.

Then today, Master Shifu had it with Colin and ordered Nathan to distract him. Nathan took Colin outside to the steps to the Jade Palace to sit down and relax, or at least try to.

"I can't believe that after all our hard won efforts to protect this dimension from Tai Lung, Shen, and the cultists, the remote was broken," Colin once again ranted. "Seriously, can't the universe reward us for saving it from utter conquest and evil? Now we're stuck here with no technology and no way back!"

Colin looked over at Nathan who looked despondent as he watched Tigress train from afar. This immediately struck him as odd. He had long since known that the two of them had feelings for each other and figured they would never let each other out of their general vicinity by now.

"Yo, Nate," Colin shouldered Nathan's arm, "what's up?"

Nathan was wakened from his thoughts. "Oh, hey Colin, I didn't hear you there. What was it that you were saying?"

"Hey, dude, are you ok?" Colin asked with concern, his anger leaving his voice. "You look kinda down there".

"Yeah, it's just, well, how do you know if you got chemistry with a girl?" Nathan asked.

"Why, you're thinking about dating Tigress?" Colin asked.

"How'd you know I was thinking about Tigress?" Nathan asked, surprised Colin knew what was going on between him and Tigress.

"Dude, it's pretty obvious," Colin smirked. "Tigress keeps everyone at a distance except for you, and you seem to care for her. I even saw you two hug when we rescued Lorelei".

"Oh, well, then ok, how do I know I got something going on with Tigress?" Nathan asked. "We care for each other deeply, but how do I know I'm in love with her, or if she's in love with me?"

"I'd never had a girlfriend, but from what my parents told me, you gotta see if you have chemistry with that person, and the only way to do it was to kiss them on the lips," Colin said.

"Didn't your parents, like, shun everyone around them and put you down a lot?" Nathan asked.

"Ok, let me put it this way," Colin explained. "When my dad kissed my mom for the first time, they said it was like sulfur reacted with oxygen, which, as you know, produces sulfur dioxide, a toxic gas with a very bad and irritating smell. There was hardly any chemistry, and they didn't get along at first, but they were snobbish, judgmental, emotionally abusive people which made them get along perfectly after a while".

"Ok, so I need to kiss Tigress to see if I have chemistry with her and hope that it doesn't result in a toxic, bad smelling gas?" Nathan asked.

"Yup."

"I think your parents were horrible at giving dating advice, and yet that seems like a good idea," Nathan said. "How do I kiss her without getting maimed?"

"Well, she's got to be willing too," Colin smirked. "Chemistry isn't one-sided, it's two-sided. You could ask her. If she cares about you so deeply, then she might be interested in developing a relationship, too, so just explain your situation and ask if you can kiss her. Tell her how you feel, but if it doesn't work, don't tell Tigress I gave you the idea. I don't want to suffer her wrath."

"I'll be sure to lie."

"Thanks."

"But thanks for the dating advice. I think I'm gonna go find out now if I have a chance with Tigress or not!" Nathan said confidently.

"Go get her, bro," Colin said.

Nathan was filled with warmth when Colin called him "bro." Colin saw Nathan as a brother. Nathan smiled. They were truly brothers to the end.

Nathan climbed down the stairs and ran off to Tigress. Rather than interrupt her, Nathan watched Tigress perform a series of aerial attacks. He admired her beauty and grace as the fur on her head shined in the evening sun, creating a halo of golden light. Tigress reminded Nathan of something like a warrior angel – beautiful, graceful, and deadly. How could he not have chemistry with Tigress?

Tigress noticed Nathan watching her and ceased her training. "Hey, Nathan," Tigress greeted as she walked up to her human friend. "What brings you here?"

Nathan's confidence went down the drain. "Well, um, I wanted to ask you something, but I saw you training, and I didn't want to interrupt you."

"Well, it's almost time for dinner so I'm calling it quits for the day," Tigress said. "What's up?"

Nathan twiddled his fingers in a sign of nervousness. He wasn't sure how to approach this. All he wanted to do was tell Tigress how he felt about her and wanted to know if she felt the same way and see if they have any chemistry together. And he thought asking a girl out was the hardest part of a relationship. If she cares about you so deeply, then she might be interested in developing a relationship, too, so just explain your situation and ask if you can kiss her. Tell her how you feel… Colin's voice echoed in Nathan's head. Colin's right, Nathan thought. I've just gotta take a deep breath and tell her how I feel. Tigress cares about me, too.

"Well, now that Tai Lung and Shen are gone, I had some time to think about us," Nathan said. "And, uh… look; I really, really care about you. When Colin and I escaped from captivity and reconciled our differences, my first thought wasn't defeating Shen and Tai Lung. It was saving you and hoping you're safe and alive. When I found you alive and unharmed, I was so relieved. I also really admire your grace, beauty, and superb fighting skills. When I hung out with you, I've felt really happy inside. So my point is, I deeply care for you, but I want to know if I'm in love with you".

Nathan looked hopingly at Tigress's face, wondering if she wasn't shocked by this. Luckily, those fears were laid to rest as Tigress smiled as him.

"I care deeply about you too," she said. "Never before have I ever felt so close to someone which surpassed closeness between teammates. It's like I can tell you anything without fear of judgment, and when you're somewhere where you're in danger, I go crazy with worry. The question is whether that bond I have with you is romantic or friendship."

"Well, there's one way to find out. Promise me you won't freak out," Nathan asked cautiously.

Tigress chuckled, amused by Nathan's fear of hurting her. "I promise."

"If we kiss mouth-to-mouth, maybe then we can find out if we're meant for each other or not," Nathan said, bracing himself to be maimed.

Instead of maiming, Nathan got a "That's not a bad idea" from Tigress.

"Really?" Nathan asked. "Colin suggested that."

"Colin gave you that advice?" Tigress smirked. "Maybe I shouldn't kiss you".

"Hey, don't worry," Nathan said. "I trust Colin with my life any day. He's not a bad guy when you get to know him."

"Alright then," Tigress said. "Colin is a worthy ally. So how do we do this?"

"Well, you go your right, and I'll go to my right," Nathan suggested. "No holding each other just kissing so we get a more accurate picture of where our relationship is going. Oh, and it should last at least three seconds".

"Ok," Tigress nodded.

Nathan bent down to get to Tigress' eye level. He tilted her head right, and Tigress did the same thing. Their lips met. Nathan never kissed a girl in his life, but even so, he didn't expect kissing human girls to feel the same as kissing humanoid tiger girls. It felt furry, and Tigress's whiskers tickled against his whole face. But to Nathan's disappointment, he felt nothing. No sparks, no butterflies. Nothing. Nada. Three seconds felt like three seconds, not an eternity. When the kiss ended, it was obvious that Tigress felt the same way.

"I'm sorry, Nathan," she sadly apologized.

"I'm sorry, too," Nathan said. "I was really hoping there would be something there."

"Me too." Tigress nodded. "But no matter what, you'll always be special to me, just not romantically."

"I think I'd like that," Nathan said. "We can share a close bond that no one else can touch without romance getting in the way. Thanks Tigress for understanding."

"You're welcome." They embraced in a hug.

When they let go, Tigress said, "I'm gonna get a shower. I'll see you at dinner."

"Ok." Tigress left through the training arena while Nathan went back to meet up with Colin. When he did, Colin was there and waiting to hear how it went.

"So?" Colin asked.

Nathan shook his head. "No connection. By the way, Tigress knows it's your idea to kiss and actually thought it was a good idea."

"Well, at least it didn't result in sulfur dioxide," Colin said to lighten his friend's mood.

"That's for sure. I think I'd kill myself if Tigress and I ended up like your parents," Nathan joked. "But at least we'll remain as good friends."

Colin was about to say something, but just then Crane swooped down from the skies. This caught both of them by surprise as Crane had been keen on avoiding Colin since the incident with the cult.

"There's a red panda coming this way," Crane said

"Why?" Nathan asked.

"I don't know, but he seems to be interested in getting here as quickly as he can," Crane said.

"Is the red panda a friend or foe?" Colin asked.

"I don't know," Crane said. "He wouldn't saw anything so I couldn't tell what he wanted. I'm flying off to tell Master Shifu…"

"Tell me what?"

Colin, Nathan, and Crane turned around to see Master Shifu standing at the entrance of the Jade Palace.

"How'd he get here without any of us hearing him?" Colin whispered to Crane.

"I don't know, he's just weird that way," Crane muttered before turning back to Shifu. "Master Shifu, there's a red panda heading this way. He appears to be in a hurry to get here, and I don't know if the panda is a friend or foe."

"Let him come," Master Shifu ordered.

Somehow, word had gotten around about the red panda. Tigress decided to postpone her shower to satisfy her curiosity and stood next to Nathan. By the time the red panda reached the Jade Palace, the Furious Five, Po, Colin, Nathan, Master Shifu, Master Croc, Master Ox, and Lorelei all crowed around the Jade Palace entrance. The red panda did not seem disturbed by the gathering of warriors. In fact, he didn't exactly seem all that impressed with the number of people there.

"Who are you?" Master Ox asked.

The red panda didn't seem interested in acknowledging the question. Instead, he motioned for Colin and Nathan to follow them inside the building. Slightly hesitant about what was going on, the duo followed him inside as the panda shut the door to make sure no one else disrupted him. After making sure they wouldn't be interrupted, he turned his attention to the guys.

"_I know why you're here, you guys_." the red panda said in a voice that was exactly like Colin's.

The pair had no clue as to what was going on. Not only had a random red panda shown up out of nowhere and had gotten them to follow him, but the voice was almost point for point exactly like Colin's when he was calm.

"What?" they asked.

"_I've perfected Multiverse travel as well,_" the red panda explained. "_In fact, I've been able to jump between the different realities with absolute precision_".

"Really?" Colin asked. "I haven't. I've been trying to figure out how to get out of here for months".

"_Did you have the Quantum Lock turned on?_" the red panda asked.

Colin and Nathan turned to each other, their expressions asking if the other knew what the red panda was talking about. When they got their answer, they turned their attention back to the panda. When he raised one of his eyebrows, the Too-Little-Too-Late look washed over Colin's face.

"Oh my god." Colin groaned as he face palmed himself.

"_There you go_," the red panda said.

"That explains what the beetle at the corner of the remote was," Colin whined. "Oh, I am such an idiot!"

"Really?" Nathan muttered. "You couldn't have guessed that a beetle was the one thing keeping us from getting home?"

"Oh shut up Nathan," Colin snapped. "It doesn't matter now".

"_What do you mean?_" the red panda asked.

"I can do anything about that Quantum Lock thing or whatever you called it," Colin explained. "My device got smelted during the fight".

"_Well, I've got one of my own,_" the red panda said. "_Go say good-bye to your friends while I get it ready_".

The red panda walked toward another room to prepare to send them back to their reality. The two of them, though still slightly miffed about what was going on, went outside to tell everyone what was going on. When they got outside, they saw that they were talking to a goose they've never even seen before.

"Ok… what's going on here?" Nathan asked.

"Apparently this guy's a friend of the red panda we just saw," Crane said.

Colin and Nathan looked at each other in matching confusion. This new situation was even stranger than when they were dealing with the cult.

"_Well, as I was saying, why do they have to go that another reality?_" the goose asked in a voice similar to Nathan's. "_I was under the impression that they belonged here_".

"_No, they don't_," the red panda said as he made his way outside. "_They're from an entirely different universe altogether_".

"_Oh, you mean like that time we-?_" the goose went to ask.

"_Yeah,_" the red panda nodded.

_"And we got stuck in that-?"_

_"Yeah"._

_"And you wouldn't let us leave until you took out that cult that was trying to use us to bring back-?"_

_"Yes!" _

"Ok… before this gets anymore nutty, can you just send us back to our own reality?" Colin asked.

"_Yes, I suppose we better get this over with,_" the red panda said.

The red panda scuttled the others out of the way, leaving Colin and Nathan standing alone. He then began punching in the coordinates for their world, obviously making sure to turn the Quantum Lock off as he was doing this.

"God, I sure hope this next leap… will be the leap home," Colin said.

Once he was finally done setting the remote up, the red panda pointed the remote as the duo and pressed the button. An electric like portal opened up behind them, sucking them in to take them back home.

**Well, that's that. Only one last epilogue-esqe chapter left and it's over**

**R&R plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	25. Epilogueish

**What up peoplezez**

**Well, this is it. The ending. And what a wild ride this story had been**

**Enjoy**

Zap

With a thud, Colin and Nathan once again landed on the ground. After righting themselves out, they looked around and saw that they were back at the hotel room Colin was staying when they first went reality jumping. However, given the recent track record of events that had happened to them recently, they had a hard time telling if they were really back or not.

"Are we home?" Nathan asked.

"Well, this looks like the right place but I can't say for certain," Colin said.

"There has to be a way to figure out if we're back or not," Nathan said.

"I guess the only way we can find out is if someone filed a missing person report." Colin mused as they made their way to the door. "Granted, I do have a bit of a history with going on and off the grid with the whole adoption thing, so I not sure how fast they- get down!"

Without missing a beat, they both ducked inside the bathroom as voices were heard outside the door. Moments later, they heard the door open and people ender the room. Not wanting to miss the chance to slip out of the room, Colin grabbed two glasses off the counter, handing one to Nathan to press against the door. As soon as they did, the strangest conversation was instantly heard through the door.

_"Voila Nathan"._

_"Uh… what is this?"_

_"This is how I got the pig, dude. Have you ever heard of the Multiverse theory?"_

_"Uh… yeah I have, but I'm wondering if you have"._

_"Oh my God… so transparent. Well, the theory states that there are an infinite number of universes along with ours that coexist on parallel dimensional planes"._

_"Dimensional planes… yeah."_

_"Dude, don't repeat the last two words I said like you kinda already knew what I was talking about. You have no idea what I'm talking about"._

Daring to sneak a peek, the duo opened the door wide enough to get a good view of what was going on. When they did, they saw the strangest thing in the world: the two of them, having the same conversation they had right before they got caught up in the mess with the remote. They stood there in silence while trying to comprehend what was going on as the other thems continued talking as if nothing happened.

_"Colin, I know what the theory is,"_ the other Nathan said_. "I'm not an idiot, you know"._

_"Whatever," _the other Colin said. _"Now in each of these alternate universes, the reality is different from our own, sometimes only slightly and sometimes quite radically. The point is every possible eventuality exists"._

_"And that's how you got the pig?"_ the other Nathan asked.

_"Prepare yourself Nathan and I'll show you,"_ the other Colin said.

As they watch, the other Colin pressed the button that sent them on that trip in the first place. Hesitantly, they stepped out of the bathroom and other to the spot 'they' had been a while. While they were completely aware of what had happened, they weren't exactly able to completely comprehend what they saw.

"Creepiest thing I ever saw… and that's saying a lot," Colin muttered.

"I know," Nathan said. "Can't we go five minutes without something happening?"

As with everything that had happened to them recently, Nathan's words seemed to work against him. No sooner than he had said that, the same sparks that came from the remote started flickering right next to them. Surprisingly, instead of someone dropping in, the remote plopped down on the bed. Cautiously, Colin edged over to it and picked it up. Apart from a sticky note that had the words 'just in case' written on it, there didn't seem to be anything particularly wrong with it.

"Just in case of what?" Nathan asked over his shoulder.

"I don't think we want to know the answer to that question," Colin said. "I'm putting this somewhere where it won't cause any more problems for us".

Colin made his way over to the empty safe and stuffed the new remote inside it. He then sealed it tight to make sure it didn't do anything.

"Come on, Nathan," Colin said. "Let's get out of here before something else happens".

* * *

><p>"My lord, it pains me to say this, but the operation has failed." a hooded figure said to another that was sitting on a throne.<p>

"Hmm, it's not like you to fail Xeras," the figure said. "And I told you this would be a simple job to complete".

"We encountered… more trouble than we anticipated," Xeras said. "Two humans continuously got in our way and foiled the plan".

"Two humans?" the figure asked. "Did it, by any chance, happen to be…?"

"Yes my lord, it was them," Xeras said.

"Interesting," the hooded figure said. "I wasn't expecting there to be any new resistance to us. No matter. We can still continue with our plan despite this minor inconvenience. Prepare to assault the next world".

**Uh oh, something tells me the duo haven't heard the last of the cult**

**In case any of you want to know, Smile- ImTheEndOfAllThatYouSee and I almost have a clear view as to where they will be going next. However, we might wrap up some of our other stories before then so I'm not sure when we'll start working on it. Keep your eyes open until then to see where they go next**

**Until next time, R&R plz**

**NITRO PSYCHO OUT!**


	26. AN

**What up peoplezez**

**We've finally started on the next chapter of the Multiverse Mix-Up franchise. There aren't that many chapters in it right now, but things will pick up the moment we get momentum**

**I do not expect, nor do I want, any reviews for this. This is just to let you all know what's up**


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